She Isn't Enough
by CrayonClown
Summary: First person look into Booth's thoughts as he suffers a gambling relapse as he deals with the emotional struggle thinking about his relationship with Hannah, and where he went wrong with Bones. Can Bones save him from himself? B&H with B&B resolution
1. Chapter 1

**This one is a companion piece of sorts to "Tangible Pain". While the story line isn't the same or even related, each story reveals the emotional turmoil inside each character. **

"**She Isn't Enough" Summary: We get a look into Booth's thoughts as he is sitting there gambling as he deals with the emotional struggle thinking about his relationship with Hannah, and where he went wrong with Bones. Can Bones save him from himself? Two-shot, possibly three.**

"**Tangible Pain" Summary: How is Brennan handling Booth blowing her off for Hannah? When Angela discovers the truth she seeks the help of Booth, only to find out he knew and didn't do anything. Will guilt be enough for Booth to be finally able to get Brennan the help she needs? One-shot**

**All disclaimers apply: Not mine…yada, yada, yada…**

**Warning: this gets a little angsty. This stream of consciousness first person view is told from Booth's inner monologue as he has relapsed into his gambling addiction. His thoughts jump around, and are sometimes unfocused on just one thing, as I would figure he would struggle with in a situation like this. Or it could just seem that way because of the fact that I haven't written first person in about five years, as I am still getting back into writing. I would appreciate any feedback or advice anyone may have for me. :)

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**She Isn't Enough**

I look around at the flashing lights, and I take in the sounds, the music, the people talking, laughing, the sound of coins hitting coins in the bins in front of slot machines. I listen to poker chips hitting other poker chips. I hear the roll of dice and the sighs and noises of disappointment along with the occasional sound of cheers at the craps tables. I hear the sound of the balls going around the roulette tables before settling into one of the slots on the board.

I look up and the black jack dealer is waiting for my wager. I sigh and slide forward some of the last few chips I have. I haven't been here long, but I've blasted my way through quite a bit of money at this point. I've only got a few left and I'm in some serious trouble. I have to get some of it back.

A waitress comes by our table with a round of drinks, no doubt designed to keep people in a haze as they sit there and lose track of time and all of their sensibilities as they gamble away what money they came with. I politely decline the free drink. I'm not a huge drinker in the first place, but then again I clearly don't need to have free booze tossed at me to stay here and lose everything I have. I seem to be doing a decent job of that on my own.

How have I managed to get back to this? The sad thing is that I know what my problem is, yet instead of fixing it, I broke. I gave in. I gave up on one of the best things that had ever happened to me because it seemed like it was all way too far out of the realm of possibility in recent circumstances. Bones turned me down, and now I'm _moving on_ with Hannah.

I haven't been to church in the three months since we've been back in the states. I haven't been to confessional. I have barely seen my son, or even the people that I used to spend most of my free time with, even outside of work, mostly Bones.

Ya know, I thought I had everything figured out in my life. I have a good job, a dangerous one at times, but it's good. I've got a wonderful son. I kicked a bad addiction after a few years of being in a pretty bad place being in debt with loan sharks and watching my life pass me by. I paid back every person I owed money to, and that's a pretty long darn list. I had a wonderful woman working by my side, and then I fell in love with her. Hell, she's the reason I kicked the gambling addiction in the first place. We danced around each other for years before things took a horrible turn that led up to me being where I am today.

Bones is so beautiful. She's infuriating. She's gentle. She's blunt. She's honest. She's caring. She's horrible at being humble. She's smart, yet I love to explain the little things that as a genius you would think she should know. Things like colloquialisms, sports, social cues…love. Love, now that's a loaded subject with her. _Love is just a chemical reaction in the brain where dopamine is released_ blah, blah, blah. I've heard her debate and debunk so many of my beliefs at this point, and many of them several times over, that I have her every argument memorized.

Can't she see how much I loved her? Hell, I'm still in love with her. There lies the problem. I love her, and she loves me. I can tell. Another problem: it scares her. Hell, I scared her when I pushed her, or maybe she isn't as in love with me as I thought. I really don't know what to think anymore.

Is there something wrong with me that everyone can see that I can't? Rebecca didn't want me because I put her in a situation she wasn't really ready for and proposed for the wrong reasons. Tessa didn't really give me a reason for leaving me, though I suspect that it might have had something to do with Bones' presence. Cam, well, I broke up with her not because of the fact that she could have been hurt because of my job. No, it's because I was in love with my partner. Since then (and it's been a few years!), who has there been? No one. That's just as well, I guess. I didn't really want anyone else, but her anyway.

When I finally tell her how I feel, I mess it up because I see the panicked look on her face. It causes me to chicken out and add a qualifier that even she looks disappointed to hear. Even though she looked panicked for a second, maybe things would have been better off if I had just left it as it was to see how it played out.

Then, there's Sweets. Good Lord, I outta rip that kid a new one. The nerve he had! You don't go around telling recovered gambling addicts to take a gamble. On anything! Gambling is gambling, no matter the currency being put up as the wager.

This time it was my heart. Her heart. I showed my cards to her. I revealed my hand. I pushed her, and I know it. She told me that I'm the one that needed protection from her, and that we can't because of the FBI. Protection? Shit, this hurt me more than anything else in the world. She left me a broken man with nothing left to protect. From that day forward our relationship was strained. We had some good moments, but it hasn't been the same since that day.

We even tried to go to separate parts of the world to see if putting distance between us could fix us. She needed perspective. She needed time _and_ space. I get that. I needed some time and space to myself as well I guess. I took that stupid tour of duty in Afghanistan because of it.

I couldn't sit at home and do what we do every day without her there! It isn't as if I could stay there and then just tell the bureau not to give me any cases or assign me a new partner in her absence. So going to Afghanistan was logical, right?

Ugh, listen to me, I sound like _her_!

Looking back on it, I don't see how I could have taken off to do the very thing that had me so torn up and into gambling in the first place. I suppose it might have had something to do with Parker's insistence that I go and help _save_ lives over there. I don't think that he truly understood that it meant that I might have to _take_ someone's life to save others. I can't place the blame on my innocent nine year old for not understanding what truly happens in this world. In the end, it was _my_ decision to go.

When I first got out of the army, adjusting to civilian life was no easy feat. A few buddies and myself would take trips to Atlantic City, and we would spend some time numbing ourselves and ignoring real life in the casinos. It started small. Just a few bucks here and there. No big deal. We won big one day, but as we were trying to push our luck and win more, we lost it fairly quickly. We kept losing, and ended up trying to borrow money to get it back. Soon, I ran through _everything_ I had. I borrowed money from _everyone_. On weekdays, I didn't drive to Atlantic City, as that was something I tried to do only on weekends so that I could work my job as a rookie FBI agent during the week to pay for my habit. I would spend the weekdays in a pool bar whenever I wasn't at work. Everything I had worked for was put into my addiction. I tried to quit numerous times after Parker was born. I wanted to be a good father. I didn't want to have this cloud looming over me every time I visited him, which wasn't very often because Rebecca didn't think that I would be good for him. I went to so many meetings at my church and so many confessions, but I never completely walked away from gambling. I got close, but there was always something that took me back to the casino or pool bar, and each time it seemed to be worse than the time before.

Until one day, I was advised to consult with _Dr. Temperance Brennan_ on a case. From the moment I laid eyes of her, _I knew_. She was _the one_. One look at her, and I knew I was _done_ wasting my life in a pool bar. Even after we parted ways, with a lot of hostility towards each other after that case, I still had no desire to go gamble my life away. I quit, cold turkey. All it took was for her to walk into my life. Sure, we spent the year apart, but somehow, _I knew_ that she wasn't done being a part of my life.

How did I manage to screw up so badly with the one woman I know I'm meant to spend the rest of my life with? How did I ever allow myself to think that I could just move on from someone like her?

During my time in Afghanistan, I moved on. Or I tried to, anyway. I found someone who was able to love me the way I needed. It was clear to me that Bones didn't want me in her life in that way. She said she didn't have my kind of open heart, which meant to me that she couldn't love me like _that_. So, I _had to_. I had to _move on_. I had to _try_.

I met a wonderful fun loving woman, Hannah, while I was in Afghanistan. I arrested her when she showed up, and ended up saving her life as well. When we started to sleep together over there, first it was just her way of thanking me for saving her life. Then, it continued as a way to pass time between getting sand in our eyes and sending kids out into situations they had no business being in. I don't know when it started being _more_ for her, but I do know now that _it could never have been more_ for me. I don't think I knew that at the time, but I still didn't expect her to follow me back to the states. I didn't expect her to pack up her nomadic life and move in with me.

Looking back on all of this, I can't help but think _who invites themselves into someone's life like that_? Even if I were in love with her, which now I know that I'm not, it's typically common courtesy to wait for someone to ask you to move in with them. I understand that she felt like she didn't have anywhere to go once she got here, but she does have a job and a steady income that she could have used to get herself a decent room to stay in somewhere. It was just intrusive, and I'm not sure I handled that situation the right way.

The look on Bones' face when I told her about Hannah was bad enough. She tried to make the point that I had arrested her, too, at some point. I now see that she was trying to tell me not to give up on her. I could see it in her eyes. Maybe she was ready to move on, but then I had just laid the giant news of finding another woman on her. I could see the hurt. She was _so excited_ to tell me that she hadn't engaged in a sexual relationship, that it really should have sent alarm bells off in my brain that she was trying to tell me that she was holding off for her return. _For me_.

For the most part Temperance Brennan has an amazing ability to hide what she is truly feeling, but not from me. I can see the miniscule things in her expressions that give her away. I can see the tender woman who cares so much about so many things that it tears away at her until she closes off more of herself. I don't know what it is; maybe I pestered and annoyed her to the point where she finally let me in just to shut me up, and allowed me to see her vulnerabilities. Yet, for some reason, right after our return, my brain didn't seem like it was able to process anything having to do with her. I couldn't tell that she was implying that she had been ready upon her return to make a step forward in our relationship.

Well, I couldn't until Hannah showed up while we were having lunch at the diner, I could immediately see the hurt in her face as I left the table, but I was either too shocked or too stupid to stop myself from _abandoning_ her at that table. Just like I _left_ for Afghanistan, and just like everyone else _leaves_ her, I _left her_ at that table to watch as I run to Hannah and kiss her until Bones comes over and interrupts us very awkwardly. I just stood there stupidly as she had to introduce herself to the _other_ woman I know she had to have been at least somewhat jealous of. She may not have realized it, but I know she had to be. Hannah was taking the place in my life that she _could have_ had, the place in my life that she may have been ready to admit to wanting, had I not blindsided her with _moving on_.

What baffled me the most was the fact that they became _friends_. The woman I have been pining for over the past six years and the woman I'm trying to love are being friendly with each other. That tells me that she wants me to be happy and she doesn't want to mess this up for me. All I can think about is, _but what about her_? She deserves to be happy, too. The fact that she is willing to sacrifice her happiness for mine just makes me love her even more. Talk about a vicious cycle as far as moving on is concerned.

That made it very hard for me to continue trying to move on with Hannah. It made me realize that I am just using her. She isn't the one for me, and I know that. Only now, I am able to admit to myself that this whole thing with her is a mistake. I feel as if I've cheated on Bones.

I'm not sure Hannah realizes that the person she is in love with isn't real. Can she not tell how fake I seem? I don't even recognize myself. I know the squints can see through my act. Even Bones had to have seen that I'm not myself. Maybe I was waiting for someone to call me out on my crap, but no one did.

All Hannah saw was the fun part of Seeley Booth. She hasn't seen the real me in the months prior to my return, and she definitely hasn't seen the real me in the three months since we been back in the states. She doesn't know the factors in my life that led to me being who I am, and I'm sure she has no clue about the things that are troubling me today.

Hannah obviously knows that I've served in the army since she was there, but does she know what that does to me inside? Does she know how much it eats me up to take a life, even one with just cause? I doubt it. I've never told her. Whether in the Army or because of a case working with the FBI, taking a life is something I hope to avoid if possible. Bones knows; she's had to take a life. The most prominent example that comes to mind is Pam Nunan. Bones shot and killed her after the crazy bitch tried to shoot Bones and I jumped in front of the bullet for her. Bones knows that she had to act quickly because Pam was prepared to fire another shot so she had to shoot in self-defense, but part of me can't help but think that the sensitive Bones that I know beats herself up over taking the crazy woman's life. Talking from experience, having taken a life in self-defense, I know that I have a tendency to think, _what if I did it on purpose or as revenge_. I know she has to be struggling with something like that. Gordon Gordon helped me to see that I wasn't sure how I felt after Epps' death. Did I really try to save him, or did I cave let him drop to his death on purpose as a form of retribution for all of the shit he did? It makes you start to doubt yourself and your choice. _Did that person really have to die?_

Does Hannah know about my father? No, probably not. Why? Because, I've never told her. She doesn't need to know the personal Hell I went through as a child. She wouldn't understand. Bones does. While our situations were not the same, there are similarities in our pasts that allowed us to lean on each other and help each other through some tough situations in our partnership. I helped her through some a few hairy situations concerning her family and their past. Bones helped me with Pops when I thought I could take care of him after he assaulted that male nurse in his retirement center. It was tough seeing him feel like he was losing everything that made him who he was, his independence. He really liked her. I don't think he would like Hannah too much. She's can come off as sort of fake. Pops really seemed to like Bones' ability to just say shit without sugar coating it. He genuinely loved her and accepted her as family. Pops is a good man, and I should have taken his advice. Perhaps if I had listened to Pops instead of Sweets, this would have turned out different. I should never have thought of taking a step forward in our relationship as a gamble. It wouldn't have been a gamble. It should have been a sure thing. Maybe that's what scared her away. Did she think that I wasn't really sure about what we could be because Sweets called it a gamble? If so, she probably thinks that she isn't worth anything but taking a gamble on. She's worth way more than that. She's worth dying for.

Forget the fact that Hannah doesn't know about my family life, I don't really know anything about her other than she is a journalist and travels a lot. I know so much about Bones. Some of it was learned by accident or circumstance. Maybe it was fate; Bones would say she still doesn't believe in fate. Either way, I wouldn't change anything that makes Bones who she is.

Does Hannah know about my history with Bones? I know I talked about Bones, but I never told her what happened between us or my reason for returning to the army. No, she doesn't know that we were practically like a married couple. Everyone thought we were together. Everyone speculated about us. She doesn't know that Bones asked me to father her child. She doesn't even know that I had a brain tumor. She doesn't know that I took a bullet for Bones. What does she really know about me at all? I mean really, know about me. I know she's seen the scar from the bullet that pierced my chest, but she's never asked about it. I know that she's seen some other scars, but she's never asked about them either. Bones knows everything about me. Even the things that aren't visible on the outside, like my feet. I have no doubt that Hannah has noticed the amount of time it takes me in the morning to get my feet ready for the day. She's never asked. How can someone who loves me not ask about something like that?

Does Hannah even know about my gambling problem? No, I've never told her that, either. There's just so much that I cannot tell her because she won't understand where I'm coming from. She's seen too much of my happy-go-lucky façade for me to tell her any of this and expect her to understand why I didn't tell her.

She really doesn't know much of anything about me. How is that fair? How is it that she thinks she loves me, when she doesn't even know the whole me?

I'm currently sitting in Harrah's blowing my whole paycheck at the black jack tables. _She_ wasn't enough to keep me from coming back to destroying own life to make up for the other wrongs I imposed on others in Afghanistan. Sure, I was only supposed to be there for training, but I knew that was a load of bull when I signed up to go. Why did allow myself to do it anyway, knowing that I would have to kill again?

Hannah wasn't enough. She's not enough for me to tell her the truth about my life. She isn't enough for me to tell her about my childhood, my addiction, or the emotional pain that manifests itself into my heart so deep, that it becomes physical pain.

She was sitting right in front of me at the diner when I heard the register ding that familiar ding that sent a flash of desire through me. The ding as the register drawer is opened and closed. The sound of change hitting other change in the drawer. I mentally turn it into the sound of chips hitting chips, coins being dispensed from slot machines, and with each passing minute as the waitress checks out more and more people the desire becomes overwhelming. The desire to hear more dings, to hear more coins hitting coins. The desire to see the flashing lights and hear the music. The desire that makes my palms itch. The desire to numb myself with sitting in the windowless casino for days on end without knowing if it is day or night. The desire to escape the fact that I knowingly returned to active duty knowing I would have to kill again, to escape how much I messed things up so badly between me and Bones. Seeing Hannah's face right in front of mine was not enough to keep me from immediately driving to Atlantic City right after parting ways with her after lunch. If I loved her, it would have been enough.

I should be at work right now, and I know it. Bones is probably wondering when I'm going to return with the evidence she was waiting for, or at least I hope she is wondering. She would be very disappointed in me right now, if she saw me.

Maybe that's what I need right now. I need for the one person in this world that knows me and what I've been through to help me through this. I've reached my breaking point, and I think there is only one person who can help me through this.

Bones.

Maybe she can help me fix _this_. She can help me fix _us_. She was the reason before, so maybe she can be that reason again.

I don't know, but one thing I know for sure. _Hannah is not enough_.

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**Please let me know what you think. **

**This could honestly stop here, but at the same time, I think it does need a little closure. **

**Next chapter may be told through Brennan's stream of consciousness, but will still be Booth centric. Maybe, if I can pull that off. :|**

**Shameless self plug alert! If this one left you needing a pick me up, I suggest reading my "Bailed Out" series. Or if you have a ton of time to kill, you could give "The Jelly Bean in the Bones" a try.**

**XOXO,  
CrayonClown**


	2. Chapter 2

**Sorry it's taken a couple of days to get this out. I mentioned this on an update for "The Jelly Bean in the Bones" the other day, but I have been battling a cold this past week and on top of that I broke a toe. So, I was on cold meds and pain killers. I didn't want to write anything while my brain was heavily under the influence. There is no telling what you would have read. I just needed to wait for a clear head before I could try to work my way through this. Wow, it's really hard to write from Brennan's perspective. One thing you may notice in this one, I had trouble with shifting between past and present tense. I kept doing it without noticing (thank you post-cold haze!), and then I would have to go back and fix it. There is supposed to be a tense change towards the end where it shifts from past to present, just as the previous chapter does, though. Does this make any sense? R&R**

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I was sitting on the platform examining some remains. Apparently, I had been there for several hours already because Angela had tried, but failed, to get me to at least leave to go to dinner. I told her that I was waiting on Booth. He was supposed to be bringing me some evidence for our latest case, but either he was delayed at his office somehow or he couldn't obtain the evidence.

The strangest thing was that he didn't call me to let me know what was going on. Okay, well, maybe not strange as of late, considering he spends most of his free time with _her_ now, but he _always_ calls when it's important to our job.

I know that he was supposed to have lunch with Hannah; that's what he usually did now. I haven't heard from him since he called me this morning, and considering it was now nearing nine o'clock and I haven't heard anything, not even about the case, I was beginning to grow worried. I actually called Hannah to see if she had heard from Booth. She hadn't talked to him since she left him after lunch. He'd told her that he was going to pick up the evidence from Charlie and then head to the Jeffersonian. When she told me that, my stomach sunk. Something's wrong, and I know it.

I started searching my mind trying to think of reasons he could have for not contacting me. I started thinking of everything that could be wrong. I started thinking about the things that we try not to think about regarding the ones we care about, the ones we _love_.

I must have called him over fifty times. Each time it immediately went to voicemail indicating that his phone was off. Even though I knew it was off, I kept calling in hopes that somehow, someway the phone would have been turned on in the few minutes since my last call. It never happened. I finally stopped calling every few minutes and started calling every twenty minutes. I wasn't getting anywhere.

I wasn't getting anything done on the platform with the remains, so I went to my office to work on some of the paperwork that I had let build up. I couldn't concentrate on that either. I tried checking email, but I ended up having to re-read some of them. I couldn't keep doing that either. The last thing I needed to do was make a mistake on examining the remains or make an oversight on paperwork and emails, so I finally decided to go home.

On my way there, I almost decided to go over to Booth's to let myself in to make sure he didn't wasn't laying somewhere bleeding out because he hurt himself or something, but then I remember _she_ lives with him. If he were home, she would have told me. She sounded just as worried when I got off the phone with her earlier.

I called Charlie, and he hadn't heard from Booth at all since before lunch, which meant that Booth never went to collect the evidence from Charlie. _Where is he_? I ask myself. I look at my cell phone on my nightstand, and I called Charlie back, less than twenty seconds after I hung up the phone, to ask him if he can do a GPS trace of Booth's cell phone. He said he could have, had Booth's phone been on, but it wasn't.

I had just made another call, hoping that Booth picked up, but not getting so lucky. After shutting my phone, I plugged it in considering I had used it so much that the battery life was running low now. Then, I poured myself a glass of wine to relax my nerves a little.

I heard my phone ring just as I was about to take my first sip.

Booth.

I stare at the ID, almost in disbelief. Finally, I find the courage to answer the phone without the urge to rip him to shreds for being so unreachable as I realized that he may be calling because he was in need of help. I decided to find out why he was calling before really unleashing a lecture on proper ways of communicating changes of plans.

"Brennan," I answer the phone.

"Bones? I need you."

Hearing that statement, I pause to think about what he meant. Surely, he didn't mean that in the way it sounded. First, his voice was soft and unsteady, and definitely not the strong cocky sure tone that I'm used to hearing from him. Second, he had Hannah. Why would he need me? Maybe he just needed my help. Yeah, that's it. He needed help.

"Is something wrong, Booth?"

"Yes." I heard him break down. This must be bad if he is breaking down over the phone.

Then through his sobs, I heard it, the distinctive sound of a machine going off indicating a winner of some sort. The more I listen to the background, I'm surer of what I heard. I'd heard it before when we were on a case. The one in Vegas where we went undercover as Tony and Roxy. I remember watching him take in the sounds and environment of the casino. I know I'm not as intuitive when it comes to body language, but I know I saw a little bit of a falter in his demeanor then.

"Booth?"

He didn't respond. I could still hear him and the sounds of the casino, so I know we haven't been disconnected.

"Booth?" I try again. "Can you hear me?"

"Yes, Bones. I can hear you."

"I'm already heading out of my apartment. Where are you?"

"Bones, I…" He broke down again.

I could tell he was embarrassed or ashamed. I know he must have relapsed. I don't care about how or why it happened, yet. I'm not even sure I care that it happened. All I know for sure is that I know he needs me right now, and no matter what he's done, I'm prepared to be there for him. That's what you do for the ones you _love_.

"Booth, I need you to tell me. Are you in Atlantic City?"

I heard his breath shudder on the other end of the line as he struggled to gain control of his emotions. "Yes."

"Okay, I need you to tell me what casino you're at. Can you do that?"

"Harrah's," came the soft admission.

"Booth, I'm on my way. I need you to stay on the line with me. Okay. I can talk to you, you can talk to me, or we can just sit and listen to each others' silence, but I need you to stay on the phone with me."

"Okay."

There's a long bit of silence between the two of us as I sped towards Booth. It gave me time to think. Why did he call me and not Hannah? Oh, crap, Hannah. Does she even know about Booth's past regarding his gambling addiction? Should I call her or would that violate any trust that Booth might be placing on me? Even if I decided that Hannah should be called, I cannot let Booth off the line for fear of not getting him back on.

We talked on and off throughout my drive. I had to plug my phone in to charge on the way so that I wouldn't lose the call because of a dead battery. As we talked, our words were nothing big, just small meaningless conversations, but just those few words that held little significance were some of the most important words being spoken in the world at the moment. He wasn't shutting down. He was still interested in my help.

When I arrived in the parking lot, just over three hours later, it was late, almost four in the morning. I asked him if he could come outside of his own will to give him a little control over himself and the situation or if he needed me to come inside to get him.

I was surprised when he said he needed me to come inside to get him, and to be honest it scared me a little. That meant that he was really distraught about the situation, and it must be really bad. I started to wonder how much he lost. I didn't ask, I knew I would need to later, but for now, he just needed me to find him.

I asked him where he was, and he told me he was sitting on the floor in a corner on the opposite side of the black jack tables, where he informed me he had spent most of his day. I was marginally happy that he could make that admission. He described to me the area he was in, and I went in search of him, telling him that I was close.

When I saw him, I closed my phone and took in his appearance as he dropped his phone from his grip upon spotting me as well. He was slumped into the corner on the floor. His eyes were red and his face seemed to have aged several years. I wondered if he had been drinking as well, but I'm not sure. I will find out, though. Upon dropping his phone after seeing me, he seemed to close up further. He pulled his knees to his chest as he folded his arms across his knees and buried his face in his arms with more sobs wracking through him. I rushed over to his side.

I didn't know if I should touch him, but when I thought about the type of person Booth is, I realized that's exactly what he needs. He was always trying to make physical contact in some form or another; it's been lacking lately between us, and I miss it. I didn't even realize how much he touched me, until it wasn't there anymore.

As I knelt beside him, I realize that not only had I rushed to his side, but I had sought out the physical contact before any of those thoughts had even crossed my mind. One of my hands was already rested on his knees to stabilize me as I knelt beside him, and my other hand found its way to the back of his neck gently caressing the skin and toying with the short hair there. Occasionally, it moved down to rub circles on his back.

I was finally able to get him to look at me, but the second he did, he broke down again. I started to wonder if I was even helping him at all. Maybe, I should have gone to his apartment to pick up Hannah. Maybe he needed her, but then again, if he needed her, why did he call me? I wished I wasn't so confused about this. Maybe it would have been easier to know what he needed if I knew what he was thinking, but clearly, he was not ready to talk yet.

When he raised his gaze to look at me again, I motioned for him to stand up. He gave a small nod, and I helped him to his feet. One thing I hadn't noticed while he was sitting there holding himself became apparent upon him standing. He was shaking.

I went to pull him into my arms, but he was already halfway there as he pulled me into him hard and desperately. He clung to me as I eased us towards the exit. We earned stares from many patrons on our way out, but it didn't seem to bother or surprise the wait staff. They had all apparently seen scenarios like this unfold before their eyes before, undoubtedly.

When we finally emerged from the casino, the light and fresh cold crisp air of the morning hit us like a ton of bricks. It was both refreshing and stifling at the same time.

On the way out, I told him that we would get a hotel room far on the edge of the city, away from the casinos so that we could get some rest. I told him that I would have to call Cam and Cullen to let them know that neither one of us would be coming in to work today, and he nodded solemnly as he realized he would have to let his superior know of this development as it could affect his performance on the job. Before, when he had the gambling problem, he hadn't had as much respect for the job or the people he worked with as he does now and he didn't care how it affected him, his job, or the people around him. Now, he probably feels like he's failed them all somehow.

When we reached the parking lot where we were both parked, I realized we had two cars with us, and I wasn't willing to leave him alone to take both cars with us wherever we were headed.

I didn't know which car we should take, but he made the decision for me as he handed me his keys. I took them, looking into his eyes. I figured now is as good of a time as any to ask, "Have you been drinking?"

He shut his eyes and took a deep breath, "No. I'm messed up enough without adding liquor to the mix. I just want you to drive."

"Okay." I hug him once more before I left him on the passenger side of the SUV to round over to the driver's side. We both got in, and I started the vehicle up.

As I put it in reverse, he spoke.

"I love you, Bones."

I put the truck back into park, and I froze. He had completely caught me off guard and by the look on his face, himself, too. I could feel my breathing getting shallow, and my heart was racing. I've had panic attacks before, and started to wonder if I was going to have one when I was supposed to be helping Booth.

I turned my head to look at him to see that he was staring at me, waiting for me to look at him. His eyes, though still sleepy and red, were soft and warm. His breathing was shallow and quick as well.

He was probably waiting on me to respond. I didn't know what to say. Did he mean it?

"I know, Booth," I start to say, and then I stupidly add, "In an 'atta girl way, right?"

"No, Temperance," he said softly. "No, I _love_ you. I'm _in love_ with you."

He removed his seatbelt and moved closer to me. He placed both of his strong hands on both sides of my face, cradling my head in his hands, as he crashed his lips onto mine.

The feel of his soft warm lips on mine and his taste were all so comforting and familiar. Unlike the night at the Hoover, I didn't push him away.

In my time away, I did come to realize that maybe I had made a mistake, but before I could correct my mistake, there was nothing I could do about it. He had already moved on.

Why didn't he fight harder for me? I see him with _her_, and I realize that could be me. I could be the one spending every night with that wonderful man. I don't mean just having sex, as wonderful as I imagine that would be, but I mean that I could be the one that is sharing my life with him. I suppose we once did that on a platonic level, but now with her in the picture, there doesn't seem to be much hope of that aspect of our lives returning to us, nor the possibility for more than a platonic relationship. I'm going to live my life, just as I had always expected to, and as I've seen them together, I realized that the life I expected is not the life I want. I don't want to be alone.

After coming up for air from the kiss, he was cradling my head in his hands. "Oh," was all I could say as my breaths were still coming in shallow bursts, but also more rapid after the need to replenish my air supply.

"OH!" I moved away from him. I immediately regretted it, because then he looked like he felt I was rejecting him again. Shit.

He moved back into his seat, and didn't bother with the seatbelt this time, "Let's go," he said shortly.

Shit.

"Booth, what about Hannah?" I could have kicked myself for asking that. Why on Earth did I ask about her? Why couldn't I just say it back to him? I'm starting to think that despite my high Intelligence Quotient that I really must be stupid.

He turned to face me once more, but made no move closer. Well, at least he wasn't shutting me out, and he looked like he was about to say something, so I kept my eyes on his.

"She's not the one. She's not the one I see myself with in fifty years. I love her, yeah, but not like _I love_ _you_. What Hannah and I have could never be what you and I have together, Temperance. _She's not you_."

Silence.

"Booth?"

"Yeah, Bones?" His voice broke, as I'm sure he felt like he was going to be shot down again. He looked so sad; I could tell he was already trying to distance himself from me.

"I love you, too." It rushed out of my mouth like word vomit, but I couldn't hold it back any longer. His eyes went from staring almost through me and sharpened his gaze on mine once more, as he realized what I said.

He once again crashed his lips to mine. I don't want to let him go, but I cannot let him do this to Hannah.

"Booth, stop. You have Hannah."

"_She' isn't enough_. She isn't you. I told you that already." He said, slightly irritated at me for bringing her up again.

"Booth, you've never cheated on anyone, and you're not going to start now. If you want to be with me, you need to break things off with Hannah first. I'm not going to be the other woman."

He sat back in his chair and leaned his head back against the headrest. "You're right."

I put the truck in reverse again and started making my way away from the casino. He put his seatbelt on. I was still in shock, and probably shouldn't have been driving, but I needed to get us both away from the casino and checked into a hotel for the night. I found one not too far away, but not close enough that he would be tempted to walk back to the casino. I checked us in. One room with a king size bed was all they had available. They asked me if I wanted to wait for a room to be cleaned after it had been vacated this morning so that we could have two rooms. I declined the offer knowing that Booth didn't need to be alone anyway. Besides, we're both responsible adults, and we've shared a bed platonically before.

We weren't done with our conversation, yet, and I knew it, but I couldn't just let us sit there in that parking lot. We needed to get somewhere better for such a conversation.

"Do you want me to call Hannah after I call Cam and Cullen? She might appreciate knowing where you are." I asked, not sure what he wants.

"Well, she might appreciate a call, but I don't want her to find out like this, Bones. Let's just sleep and then get going."

"Booth, we need to talk about this."

"What's to talk about? I love you, and I am going to break up with Hannah."

"Booth, I don't want to come between you, and I don't want to mess up what you have!" I said, my emotions finally getting the better of me.

"You aren't messing anything up. I've done that all by myself. I'm the one that messed up. I messed up what _we_ had, Bones. I'm trying to get that back. I cannot continue this thing with her, and risk hurting her more than I already know I have on top of hurting you as well. I cannot let that happen."

I found myself crying, and he came over to sit next to me on the bed. He put his arms around me, and kissed my hairline. Great; he's the one that needed help, but somehow he ended up comforting me instead of the other way around.

"Booth, can I ask you something?" I asked.

"You can ask me anything, Bones. At this point I can't see any reason to hold anything back from you."

"Okay, I just don't want to overstep and make you uncomfortable."

"Just ask. When I say anything, I mean _anything_, even if it makes me uncomfortable. I kinda deserve some discomfort after the way I've treated everyone around me, including leading on Hannah."

"Why did you say that she isn't enough?"

"Wow. Right into the hard stuff, huh?"

"You said I could…"

"I know. I meant it. Just give me a second to think. It's been sort of a rough day."

"I understand. If you want to sleep now and answer me later, I supposed that would be fine. We could both use the sleep."

"As true as that may be, if I don't answer you now, I won't get much sleep."

"Okay."

"Well, it's really rather simple, but that isn't going to make it any easier for Hannah to understand, and I hope it doesn't freak you out."

"I'm listening, and I promise I won't _freak out_."

"See, you say that now, but you haven't heard it yet. I just don't want to put too much pressure on you. I've done that before, and I don't want to make that mistake again."

"Can you just tell me?" I asked; I'm starting to get annoyed that he just won't say it, but at the same time, I'm trying to keep in mind that this is hard for him. Of course, it's hard; why else would he have gone back to gambling?

"Alright," he finally conceded. "Six years ago, when you came into my life, I told you I had a gambling problem and that I was working on it. That night that we almost slept together after I fired you, you got in the cab without me to go home; I could have gone back in the pool bar. I could have gone back to gamble, but I went home instead. You were the difference in my life that kept me away from the pool bar. I quit cold-turkey that night, Bones."

"You did?"

"Yeah, well… mostly cold turkey. I had some help from Cullen and his wife."

"Why?"

"You. You were enough, Bones."

Tears sprung to my eyes instantly as he continued talking.

"Everything I had tried before wasn't working for me. I was never able to fully quit gambling. As painful as it is, and as horrible as this sounds, not even Parker's birth was enough."

"I can see why though."

"You can?"

"Rebecca kept you from many of your parental rights. You were limited as to when you could see him, all on top of her rejection of your proposal. You didn't feel like you had much to lose since you barely saw him anyway."

He looked down in acceptance of my logic.

"I suppose, but I still feel horrible that my own son wasn't enough to keep me from blowing all of my income, plus others' as well, on my problems." He looked up at me, eyes completely serious. Perhaps more serious than I had ever seen them. Once again, I felt like I couldn't breathe.

"You, Bones, you kept me from gambling my life away."

"I don't understand. How? Because, we left each other on very bad terms after that case. We didn't speak for just over a year, how did you stay away from gambling all of that time?"

"I knew, Bones. I knew, and I still know. You're the one for me." He told me.

Is it getting hot in here, because I feel like I could pass out. I can feel my face flush from his words. This is what I realized I wanted, but why was this so hard? I want a life with him. I know that, but why do I feel like I'm about to have a panic attack?

Is it because he loves me? Could it be because he just told me that I was the catalyst that stopped a major addiction in his life? I shut my eyes in realization of why I'm so panicked.

He started gambling again because he didn't have me in his life. He started gambling again because I rejected him. He tried to move on; he must have noticed that I was ready to accept a change in our relationship upon our return, but he felt stuck in his relationship with Hannah. He started gambling again because we kept missing _our moment_.

This moment _has_ to be different. We cannot keep circling each other only to have our relationship take another nose-dive. We won't survive if it happens again.

As I sit here thinking about all of the times we got so close only to have some interruption or some reason why our moment didn't work out, I realize he's still talking to me, and he's saying something, but I've gone deaf to what he is saying. It's doesn't matter anymore. I've heard all I need to hear to make my decision.

I practically knock him over on the bed setting my lips on a collision course with his. He's shocked, and it takes him a few moments to respond. In a passionate kiss that mirrored the first one in the car, my hands are on either side of his face. Our lips are caressing the others', our tongues are dueling, our teeth our nipping at flesh. It's getting excessively inappropriate for someone who is currently involved with another person to be engaged in. We both know that, but neither of us seems to be able to stop what is happening.

We both need to breathe. I raise my neck to break the kiss so that I can get some air. He trails his kisses down my jaw to my throat and kept his lips right below my ear where he continues to kiss me and with his hot lips and tongue. His hands have worked their way under my shirt where he is caressing the skin on my sides and my back.

He breathes into my ear as he nibbles on my earlobe, sending shivers down my spine.

"Booth," I moaned, "We can't…"

"I know," He stopped briefly to reply, and then continued dropping kisses all over my neck and then moving back to my jaw. Just before he reached my lips he said, "I know, it's probably delusional to think this way, but I feel like I've cheated on _you_, Bones. Somehow, _this_," he motioned between us, "what we're doing right now, doesn't feel like cheating." He nipped at my lips with his teeth and then he soothed the sting with his lips and tongue.

If we don't stop right now, it's going to go too far. I finally reel in my common sense and try to stop the kiss once more. I remove my hands from his chest as I realize that they had at some point found their way into his shirt just as his hands did mine. I push away from him to look into his eyes again.

"Booth, we have to stop. Hannah is my friend. I cannot hurt her like this. She doesn't deserve this."

"You're right," he tells me again. "I'm sorry." He removed his hands from me and moved over to the other side of the bed and laid on his back with his hands rubbing his face. "Bones, what does this mean?"

"I would hope that my intentions were fairly clear."

"Crystal. I was just checking," he told me before he reached his hands down to unbutton and unzip his dress pants to relieve what looks like a rather painful erection. I smile inwardly knowing that I did that to him. He opened his eyes and caught the smirk on my face that I thought I was hiding fairly well, but when he smiled back, I knew that I must have had a goofy grin on my face. "I think I'm going to need a cold shower." He told me before laughing.

"I think we should just sleep. If you take a cold shower now it will wake you up too much, and you won't get any sleep."

I remove my shoes and socks to make myself more comfortable. I look down at my work clothes knowing that I won't be comfortable trying to sleep in the button down blouse and dress pants. As if he could read my mind, he took off his dress shirt and his undershirt. He handed me his undershirt, telling me that it might not be the cleanest, but it would certainly be more comfortable than the clothes I am currently wearing. He then shed his shoes, socks, and pants, leaving him in his boxers. I thank him for the shirt and move to the bathroom to change out of my clothes and into his large shirt.

The shirt practically swallows me whole, but he's right, it is much more comfortable than my clothes. I find myself enveloped in his familiar comforting scent. He smells unique, truly Boothy. It's just another one of the many things that draws me to him. He doesn't use any overpowering aftershave or headache inducing cologne. He always smells clean and masculine like sandalwood. I breathe in one last time before heading out to the room.

I walk in the room clad in his shirt and my panties. I make the necessary calls and then I make sure the curtain is drawn all the way so that no light peeks through and then I climb into bed next to him. He's on his side facing me, and I turn on my side facing him also. The sight of him bare-chested next to me is so very tempting, especially since I know we will soon be able to be together. It's taking a great amount of self-control on my part, and Booth's too I'm sure, to keep from jumping his skeleton, or is it bones; I'm sure Booth would correct me on that.

It's a little cold in the room, and Booth must have noticed the slight shiver go through me. He's pulling me closer into him. I go willingly, and hope that this won't end up being a bad choice. His Boothy scent is all around me, and he is so warm. I close my eyes, savoring the sensations that are washing over me. He kissed my forehead and told me to get some sleep, that we would both feel better later.

He looked into my eyes again and shed tears once more. "How much?" I simply ask.

"My whole paycheck. All of it." The tears came harder now.

I shut my eyes and tell him, "We'll get through this." I kissed him and held onto him as we both fell asleep holding onto each other close.

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**So, this isn't the end yet, and the next chapter may not end it either. I'm not entirely sure, yet. I have an outline, but I'm sure you've noticed I have a tendency to get wordy. Based on how much of my outline is left and my current pace, we could end up having a total of five chapters.**

**Please let me know what you think. It's important for writers to get feedback so that we can make it better.**

**XOXO,  
CrayonClown  
**


	3. Chapter 3

**This one is in Hannah's point of view. I had another chapter ready to be proofed and posted, but decided to bring Hannah's point of view into it a little sooner than I originally planned. This one is a little short as I don't think I am comfortable writing Hannah very much, because as much as we've seen her, I don't have an accurate feel for her personality. One second she's a fearless nomadic reporter, the next she's settled down in DC chasing down dangerous leads on a story as she ignored her boss's wishes that she stay out of it, and then she's ****afraid**** to meet Booth's kid. Kind of a bipolar personality if you ask me. Someone who is not afraid of being shot at in a warzone shouldn't be afraid of meeting a child. Especially the child of someone she claims to love. It's okay to be nervous, but she seemed petrified and awkward. IDK, but one thing I like is that there is not yet a character option for Hannah here on FF yet. :) Hopefully, there won't ever need to be.

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**

Temperance just called asking me if I had seen or heard from Seeley today.

I will admit that normally I've heard from him by now. He usually calls me right when he is getting ready to come home so that we can have dinner together, or if he knows he is running late, he'll call me to tell me that I can go ahead and find something to eat without him.

Not today. I haven't heard from him since our lunch together. He seemed normal to me, which is leading me to believe that maybe something has happened to him. It is after nine right now, and I could tell that Temperance sounded worried. I had never heard that kind of concern about anything from her before. She said she hadn't heard from him since that morning, and I told her the last time I had seen or heard from him was when we had lunch together.

That strikes me as odd because when we parted from the diner, he was headed over to the Jeffersonian to give her some information about their case. I can't imagine why he would go the whole day and not talk to his work partner. They have an important job to do.

When Seeley first started talking about his partner when we were in Afghanistan, I wondered if maybe he had a thing for her, but then our relationship started and I thought that maybe I was imagining things. It just seemed like the way he talked about her had been in a loving admirable way, but when I met her, I could see that the relationship between them was a deep one, more than just friends, but still platonic. Best friends.

As time went on, I have felt more and more comfortable with them spending as much time together as they do. They work together. They are partners. It is clear they are nothing more than best friends. That is understandable to me, but what concerns me is Temperance's tone when she called. She was clearly distressed that she had not heard from Seeley. She offered to go look for him, while I stay here and wait to see if he shows up. I'm not sure I like that arrangement. What if she finds him? What will she do? If he's hurt, what can she do? I would rather it be me, but I understand that someone needs to be here in case he shows up.

I called him several times. His office and his cell. Nothing.

Maybe if I just put on some music and write this article, he will be home before I know it.

.

It's three in the morning, and I just woke up lying on my keyboard. I must have fallen asleep. I looked around the apartment for Seeley. He still isn't home. I just called the police, and they said that he hasn't been missing long enough to be declared missing. I tried calling him again, and this time I tried to call Temperance, too, to see if she has heard anything. She didn't answer either.

I hope something hasn't happened to her. I can only hope that she has found Seeley and she is helping him. I know she'll call if she hears anything.

.

It's been over twenty-four hours since I last saw him now. I've called it in to the police and made a report, but I just got a phone call from Sam Cullen a few minutes ago. When he had received word about the missing persons report I made, he thought that he would call me to tell me that he got a phone call from Temperance this morning saying that he wouldn't be into work today. She apparently found Seeley. He didn't give me any details, but he told me that he'd cancel the police report since he'd been found.

I thought I knew Temperance well enough to know that she would call me! Why didn't she call me? According to Booth's boss it's been almost eight hours since she called. There's only one reason I can think of that would make her do that.

He asked her not to call me.

Why wouldn't he be going to work?

And what is so bad that he didn't want me to know where he was or that he was okay?

.

Two more hours had gone by before my phone finally rang.

_Temperance_, the ID read.

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**Review, Lovies. :)**

**XOXO,**  
**CrayonClown**


	4. Chapter 4

**This one's been chewed up, spit out, eaten by the dog that I don't have, written and rewritten. All of top of deciding that there needed to be a chapter written from Hannah's POV, hence the short little tidbit that is chapter 3. Had a hard time deciding whether to put this into Booth's POV or Brennan's, but ultimately decided on Booth's. **

**Still a little dark, but a lot of resolution happens here, but the story isn't over yet. :)**

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I woke up feeling like that one time that Bones and I almost got our brains scrambled by that huge walk-in machine that creates high frequency pitches inside a chamber that someone locked us in. I have a headache that not sure even all of the Tylenol in the world can help. At first, I don't even recognize where I am. I thought maybe I just went straight from the casino to some seedy place that I could afford on what little I had left.

Then I heard the slight snoring coming from beside me and I felt the warmth of her skin against mine. Bones. Just recognizing her presence made me feel a ton better. The headache was still there, but knowing she was there and that she was going to help me, that made all the difference in the world. I'm not alone.

I find myself now thinking about Hannah. About how she's alone right now, probably wondering where I am and what is going on with me. She has no clue what she's gotten herself into, and I've given her no indication of my faults. As far as she knows, I don't have any flaws because I've kept them perfectly hidden behind all of the little guises I use.

We don't talk about our past; not mine, and not hers. I assumed that since my past is not something I wish to discuss and since she hasn't made any move to discuss hers that maybe her past isn't all that she would want it to be either. In that case, I knew better than to pry. I figured she would have told me, had she wanted me to know.

But now that I've gone and done what I've done, I've hurt her and she doesn't even know it yet. She has no clue, and I feel horrible for that. I'm a better person that this or at least I had been before things got all messed up between me and Bones. She really does have a bigger impact on my life than I ever realized until everything between us was threatening to rip apart at the seams.

Ugh! I've got to stop doing this to myself. I'm practically thinking myself to death, as I lay next to the woman of my dreams. The woman who has saved me from myself time and time again, this time being no different. The woman who has agreed to help me through this, and who admits to loving me.

_She loves me!_

I rolled over toward the nightstand on my side of the bed and reached for my phone to get the time, and realized that the battery had died since I didn't have my charger with me. I rolled onto my back and stretched, trying not to wake the sleeping beauty next to me.

I slipped out from under the covers, catching a glimpse of Bones' bare leg up to her thigh. At the sight of her flawless flesh, I inwardly groan, knowing that it isn't mine. Yet. I snuck quietly around to the other side of the bed where Bones has her phone charging, and I looked at the time. It's almost four in the afternoon!

I knew that when we left the casino this morning that dawn was breaking and that it would be a wise decision to get some sleep before Bones drove me back home, but I didn't think we would sleep the day away. I found myself glad that Bones had the forethought to call Cullen and Camille. Then, I remembered that she had also offered to call Hannah, but I told her not to. _Shit_! I'm such a coward. I know that she's not the right woman for me, but I still care about her, too; she doesn't deserve this. She doesn't deserve to be so out of the loop with the person she is involved with; she doesn't deserve to be treated this way by me. I don't deserve to get what I want. I won't deserve Bones when she finally is mine.

I realized that I need to call Hannah, but what does one say to their girlfriend after having disappeared a little over twenty-four hours ago? What does one say after gambling their whole paycheck away? What about the fact that I'm _in love_ with my partner? How am I supposed to tell her that? I would be a total ass-hat if I told her _any_ of that over the phone.

I picked up Bones' phone from the nightstand and took it off the charger. I walked into the bathroom so as not to wake her up, and I softly closed the door. I have no idea what I'm going to say as I make the call, but I have no choice. I have to call her. She deserves to know, at the very least, that I'm not laying face down on the side of a road being eaten by scavengers after being brutally murdered.

The phone rings several times, and I'm sure that it is about to go to voicemail before she finally answers it.

"_Temperance_?" She asks timidly. I can hear the apprehension in her voice as I remembered that I was calling from Bones' phone. I remembered that Bones said she had called Hannah when she was trying to find me, which meant that Hannah knew Bones was looking for me and that also meant that she was probably waiting for news about my safety or the news of something much worse. The tone in her voice had suggested relief, but with a hint of something, I could quite decipher without seeing her face.

"No, Hannah. It's Seeley."

"_Seeley! Are you okay? Where are you? Are you in the hospital?_"

"What? No, I'm fine. I'm not in the hospital. Not injured, and nothing bad happened on the job, if that's what you want to know."

"_Good, then what happened?_"

"It's a long story, and it isn't something I'm willing to talk about over the phone, alright?"

"_Okay, when are you coming home?_"

"Hannah, I don't know. Bones is still asleep. I had a rough night, and she couldn't drive us back without getting sleep first, but we'll be back in town as soon as we can."

"_Temperance is asleep? Where are you that you aren't in town and couldn't make it back without needing sleep first? Just how far out of DC are you?_"

"It's…part of the long story. I just wanted you to know that I'm safe. Okay?"

"_Alright. Seeley?_"

"Yeah?"

"_I got a call from Cullen about two hours ago, after I put in a missing persons report. He said that Temperance had called him, why didn't either of you call me?_"

Ah, so that tone that I couldn't recognize before was because she was hurt and disappointed that I hadn't called her when I should have. She wasn't one of the first to be alerted that I had been found.

"I asked her not to." It rushed out of my mouth; she deserved the truth, but just how much was too much to say over the phone? "I—look, Hannah, this is going to be difficult enough. I will call you when Bones and I get back into town. We will talk about this when I get back. Bye."

Without waiting for a response or another question, I hung up the phone. I feel so bad for being so cryptic and hanging up, but honestly, I didn't see any other way. This was going to be a face-to-face topic that the three of us have to take care of.

Most of all, she seemed to want to know when I was coming home. The truth is I am not sure if I want to go back to my apartment that Hannah has made her home too. My own home has felt foreign to me since Bones doesn't spend much time there anymore. We haven't stayed up to do paperwork together in a long time, we haven't had movie marathons where I show her what she's been missing, and we haven't had a game night with Parker in a long time.

I stood up from the floor next to the tub, and walked back into the room. I placed the phone back on the nightstand. I sat in the chair and watched Bones sleep for a few minutes before I went back into the bathroom for a shower.

I turned the water on about as hot as I could stand it. I got in and let the hot water pound into my sore muscles in my back. The warmth of the water around my feet also helps relieve some of the stiffness there are well. I turned around and let the water beat down on my face as I just stood there. I don't know how long I was in there before a soft knock on the door alerted me to Bones being awake.

"Booth, can I come in? I really need to use the bathroom, and I'm not sure I can wait."

Girls; always needing to pee, and they can't ever just hold it.

"Yeah, sure, Bones. Just no peeking and I won't peek at you."

She entered the room and I can hear the eye roll in her next statement.

"Booth, I've seen you naked before."

"Yeah, well, pardon me for trying not to cheat on my girlfriend with the woman I love."

"That sounds commendable; did you sleep alright?"

"Yes. I slept decent enough. What about you?"

"Best sleep I've had in a long time."

"Yeah, me too, Bones."

"Have you been awake long?"

"Woke up about half an hour ago. I called Hannah to let her know that I'm not face down in a ditch somewhere. I used your phone though. I hope you don't mind."

"Not at all, I imagine the battery life on yours has been depleted by now. What did she say?"

"Well, I really didn't give her much time to talk or ask questions. I just told her that I wanted her to know that I'm safe and that we would talk later."

"You sound like you are feeling better."

"Well, that depends on the topic. I feel like a jerk for leading Hannah on; none of this is her fault, but after the phone call I gave her she probably feels like I'm shutting her out, when the truth is that I never let her in to begin with. At the same time, I'm happy that things between us are out in the open. We still have a lot to work out between us, but I feel like we are headed in the right direction to becoming us again."

"Booth? You're still sure that you want to do this right, because I'm not sure I could handle the emotional luggage…"

"Baggage, Bones. Emotional baggage."

"Right, well I'm not sure I could handle it if…"

"Are you dressed?"

"Yes, why"

I stuck my head out of the shower curtain, surprising her slightly, "Look at me, Bones." She looked up at me and into my eyes, and the tension eased from her features, and then a look that I hadn't seen from her often became evident. She was trying her hardest to _not_ check me out. I was only visible from my shoulders up, but she was turned on. I could tell. I called her name to get her attention back up to my face, "Bones." Her eyes snapped back to mine. "I'm sure. This is the right decision for all of us. You. Me. And definitely Hannah. She deserves better than what I've given her."

She crossed the short distance of the bathroom and combed her fingers through my wet hair, and then brought her hand to cup my cheek. "You are a good man Booth. I've never doubted that for a second. You deserve happiness, too, you know." I can tell she's being honest and open about how she sees me, but I can't help but feel like all of the faith and honor she places on me is false. Then, she reminds me of how hard I can be on myself. "_I know you, Booth. _ I know you are telling yourself that you don't deserve me or anyone, and I know how hard you are being on yourself. I know you. I know enough about you and your character to know and love you for who you are, warts and all." She kissed me tenderly on the forehead before telling me not to forget to wash behind my ears and then she told me to hurry because she still needs to shower and we need to get going. She also threatened to shoot me with my own gun if I used all of the hot water up. Classic Bones.

In true fashion, I hurry knowing that she's right. We need to get going. It's after four and we have at least a three and a half hour drive ahead of us. That is if traffic is good, and it won't be because we will be battling rush hour traffic.

Once we were both ready to leave, I asked her if she's sure she doesn't want to go back for her car. She says she can send someone after it later. I don't know that I would trust _anyone_ with my Mercedes if I had one. I know she probably used that car since it would have gotten her here faster than that eco-friendly car with the rubber band engine that she's been driving lately.

Her refusal to go get a car most people would cherish reminds me, yet again, what a unique unselfish and unmaterialistic person she is. And, I thought I couldn't love her anymore if I tried. Her desire to take care of me over her own possessions makes me feel like I'm worth it. To know that she loved me and saw me as worth more than that expensive car, to know that she loves me enough that she is willing to drop what she is doing to come rescue me from myself, it means the world to me. Regardless of what I've done or how shitty I've been to the ones who matter the most to me, she still holds me in the highest regard.

"Bones, can I use your phone again?"

"Sure."

She hands me the phone after she pulls out into the flow of traffic. I want to call Hannah again to let her know that we are on our way back, but I know that will just cause her to ask more questions I'm not ready to answer. I settle on sending a text instead.

_Just letting you know that we are headed back home now. Traffic looks a little bad, but we are hoping to be back to DC by 9:30. Call you then, Seeley._

The whole way back, I wondered if she would respond to the text in some way, but she never did. That left me to wonder if she was just mad that I hung up on her or that we were still so far from being back and she had to wait for her answers just that much longer. Well, at least now she had a time frame.

We arrived into town around 9:15 and Bones somehow just knew that I didn't want to head home yet, so she took me back to her apartment. She handed me one of my old shirts and sweatpants that I kept at her place for nights when we used to have late night paperwork sessions for me to change into to get out of this suit that I've been wearing for most of the past two days.

She changed into something more comfortable as well, as I called Hannah to let her know we were back and to invite her over to talk.

After a few minutes of just relaxing in the comfortable environment of her apartment waiting for Hannah to get here, I fell asleep on the couch.

The next thing I knew, there was a knock on the door, and movement into the apartment that woke me up. I stood and walked over to Hannah. I let her hug me. I knew she needs it to affirm that I am fine and nothing had happened to me.

"Thank you for finding him and taking care of him for me, Temperance."

"It was as much for me as it was for you. Booth is my best friend, Hannah, of course I would take care of him."

Oh boy. This was going to be a long night. Hannah and Bones are friends. I cannot even imagine what this will do to their friendship. I know the fate of the relationship between Hannah and myself, but I really don't want Bones or Hannah to lose their strange little friendship over this either.

I unwrapped Hannah's arms from around me and I told her we needed to talk. Her face told me she knew what was coming.

"Temperance, could you give us a moment?"

"No, Hannah. Bones needs to stay," I tell her. The shock and hurt that crossed over her features took me aback a little.

"Seeley, are you cheating on me with Temperance?"

That wasn't a question I anticipated to be one of the first ones she asked. I didn't know how to answer. Did I cheat on her? Bones and I did kiss, more than once. We even exchanged sentiments of love. At the same time though, I've felt like I was cheating on Bones. My silence made her uncomfortable.

"You did, didn't you? You cheated on me." She said, prompting me to finally say something.

"No, Hannah. I have never slept with Bones."

"Booth did not cheat on you Hannah." Bones said, coming to my defense at the same time I spoke.

"Okay, then, what is this about? You're starting to scare me, Seeley." She sat down in the armchair across from the couch that Bones and I just sat on. She's looking at me nervously, and her leg is starting to bounce.

"That's just it. I should scare you, Hannah. You know virtually _nothing_ about me. My first stint as a sniper, my…" I swallowed hard knowing that no matter how I told her, it would be hard, "my PTSD... that led to me doing some things that I'm not very proud of. You don't know about my gambling addiction; you don't know the only thing in my life that enabled me to quit, you don't know what pushed me back to the army, and you don't know…you don't know that the thing—person," I corrected myself, "that kept me from destroying myself was the reason I went back to the army, and her absence from my life recently has been what pushed me to do what I did yesterday."

Once I had stopped talking the air lay thick among us; nobody knew how to respond to my Reader's Digest version of what happened.

Hannah was now wringing her hands nervously trying to find words that wouldn't come.

"Hannah," Bones spoke, "I spent most of the day yesterday looking for Booth. You know that because I called you. I couldn't find him, but eventually he called me."

"Seeley, why didn't you call _me_?" Hannah asked, clearly hurt that I hadn't called her when I needed help. In her mind, as my girlfriend, it should fall upon her to help me, should I need it; not someone else.

"Because the person who stopped me from gambling almost seven years ago was Bones. She's knows about my past. You don't; you wouldn't know how to help me. She's been the only one who has been able to help me with that. Not even years of counseling and meetings could stop that until she came along and I quit cold turkey."

"I might have been able to help you like that, if you had given me the chance." She said bitterly.

"Maybe, but I know from experience that the only person that can save me when I'm like that is Bones. I needed help. There was no time to wait for someone else to _try_."

"Okay, so what happened, Seeley. Tell me why you needed to be saved."

"It's really complicated, and I'm not sure how to…you're not going to like it. It starts with why I was in Afghanistan in the first place."

I continued to tell her why Bones and I had taken a break from each other and DC and then I explained how her absence from my life ultimately led to my moment of weakness when I heard the drawer of the cash register ding. I told her about how the urge to gamble overwhelmed me; I told her how I took my paycheck straight to the bank to cash it rather than deposit it, and I drove straight to Atlantic City. I told her I lost it all, but I spared her the vivid details that were still swirling in my mind. So realistic, that I could still hear the sounds. So realistic, that even now, I still wanted to go back. That alone, told me just how messed up I currently am and that this was far from over.

I was never treated for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, but having seen it in other people since leaving the army and joining the FBI, I have no doubt that I suffered from if after my first tour in the army. Maybe this is a sign that my PTSD has returned after this second stint as a Ranger. I killed more people. I watched the kids around me die. I helped some of those kids learn to kill with my finesse and precision. Now that I've had time to think about it, it is very likely PTSD has everything to do with my relapse, not just my issues with being in love with Bones while living with another woman, a great woman who doesn't deserve this Hell.

Bones took over the story when she could tell I was starting to break down, telling Hannah about how she received my call and drove straight to the casino while keeping me on the line. She told her about how she found me sitting on the floor, broken and defeated in the corner of the casino, and about how she had to hold me up and support me to walk out. She told Hannah about getting the hotel so that we could sleep before making the drive since we had both been awake since the previous morning.

After most of the story had been told, Hannah finally looks over to me, with pity (I hate pity) and all she said was, "I can see why you didn't want to have this conversation over the phone."

All I'm thinking right now is, _you have no idea!_

She hasn't even been told about the interpersonal stuff yet. She's just been told about the gambling and about some of my issues about my past as a sniper that led to the problem in the first place. She still doesn't know about my abusive father, being raised by Pops, or anything about my relationship with Jared either.

"Hannah, that isn't the whole story. There is a lot of stuff that happened in-between that whole story that we haven't told you yet." I tell her, trying to gauge her reaction.

She surprises Bones and myself by saying, "I think I can guess."

"You can?" Bones asked her.

"Sure. He loves you. You weren't being as vague as you think you were, Seeley. Whenever you talked about Temperance when we were in Afghanistan, I knew you loved her. You don't talk that much about someone you don't love. Do I like that you are in love with another woman? No, but I knew you did from the first time you talked about her. When I came to DC and saw you two together, it was clear to me that you really were just friends at that point. However, judging by this discussion, I can conclude that something happened between the two of you that sent you both running in opposite directions. Then, whatever happened yesterday led to something else occurring between you two?" She phrased it as a question to confirm her suspicions, which were alarmingly accurate.

"Yes." Bones and I answered together, both of us nodding.

"Well, I think we're done here; don't you?" She stood and started putting her coat on.

"Hannah, wait. You don't want to talk about this?" I ask her. I know she doesn't _want_ to, none of us do, but I still feel like I owe her some sort of explanation.

"No. I can tell where this is going. I don't need to hear about it. It'll just hurt us all. I just want you to be happy, Seeley. I want my new friend to be happy, too, Temperance. And if that means you two being together to find that happiness, I'm willing to step away, because I don't deserve to be someone's second best. I need to find happiness for myself. Seeley, I will be going to the apartment to get some sleep, and then I have to work in the morning, but I can have all of my stuff out by the afternoon. Goodbye." She said before kissing me on the cheek and hugging me. She then walked over to Bones and gave her a hug. She whispered something into her ear that I couldn't hear before leaving and shutting the door behind her.

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**So, thoughts? Likes, dislikes? **

**XOXO,  
CrayonClown**


	5. Chapter 5

**This would have been posted yesterday, had I not got too hammered at a friend's BBQ to proof this yesterday after I got home. Then, this morning I battled a hangover at church and then had a nap when I got home. Now, it's proofed and ready for you guys. Finally.**

**I should be clear that this one is no longer just a two or three shot. Too be honest, I have no idea how long this one is going to end up being. I have an outline of issues to resolve between them, and it just seems to get longer and longer. If you notice that there is an issue that you feel has been ignored or that I haven't covered well enough, let me know. I'll add it to the list.**

**This one is once again from Brennan's POV.

* * *

**

Hannah told Booth goodbye before walking over to me and whispered into my ear before walking away and shutting the door behind her.

All I can hear in my head is Angela's voice telling me, _jump him, he's yours!_ And as much as I know we would both like the outcome of that, I know that there are many things between us that we need to resolve before we take step to turn this into an intimate relationship, especially if we want it to work out between us.

Rushing into something could be disastrous for us. Look at all we've been put through already; our relationship, while on the right track now, cannot withstand any more trauma until we do something to solidify our bond. We need to be _us_ again, first.

I smile to myself as I look over at Booth, who is still standing there staring at the shut door.

He's clearly thinking about something, but what? I don't know. Perhaps, if we hadn't grown so far apart, I would maybe have a clue. Maybe he's wondering what she told me. Maybe he's thinking to himself that it cannot be _that_ simple; that Hannah walking away without a fight seemed impossible and unrealistic, and _it is_. If I hadn't witnessed it with my own eyes, I wouldn't have believed that to be the case. Hannah just doesn't seem to be one who would give up that easily, but her reasoning was sound and absolutely solid, logic-wise. Who would want to be someone else's second best? I don't blame her.

The silence between us, it's awkward. I don't know what to say, and clearly, he doesn't either. He's usually very quick to fill in silence, or he used to be. Before everything happened this past year, he would always find some way to fill silence, if it became uncomfortable between us. He always knew what would break the ice if things took a turn for the weird, and then everything would be fine.

We just got what we both were hoping for, an amicable breakup between Booth and Hannah. It wasn't ugly and mean as it had the potential to be. Sure, Hannah was clearly despondent and defeated, but she didn't lash out maliciously. Her last words to me were friendly, instead of bitter, as I had expected.

_I hope we can still be friends. Call me tomorrow, okay?_

Would Booth be okay with that? Could Hannah and I remain friends and have it _not_ be weird and awkward between _any_ of us? Is she going to stay friends with him as well? This is why I always kept things strictly professional in the past. Building friendships and interpersonal relationships makes things complicated.

Maybe we could still be friends. Maybe she didn't love him like he deserves to be loved, like I now know that I love him. She may have been close to getting there, but maybe she can let him go so easily without a fight because she didn't love him that way.

"Why didn't she fight for us, Bones? Why was that so easy for her?"

His soft words broke through my thoughts, and sounded almost as if they had come out of my mouth, as that was exactly what I had been pondering.

I opened my mouth to respond, to tell him that I didn't know why, but he starts first.

"She didn't love me."

"No, she did, Booth. Even, _I _could see that. Just like there's more than one kind of family, I think I can now see that there might be different types of love. There's the way one loves their family, the way one loves their friends, and the way one loves their romantic partner. But also, I think it's possible to love the idea of something. I think that you and Hannah both experienced this type of love. She loved the idea of you, of being with you. For understandable reasons, you loved the idea of moving on with her, the idea of finding happiness again."

He finally moved from the spot he was rooted to since Hannah had walked out, and he walked over to me and brought his palm up to cup my cheek. His thumb started drawing a light touch to my skin.

"That's pretty deep coming from someone who always claimed love is ephemeral and is just a bunch of chemicals coursing through our brains."

"Yeah, well, I've learned a lot about myself while I was in Maluku. Love _is_ a release of serotonin being released into the brain, but I am willing to accept that there are certain people in our lives for which this chemical process occurs. Just because it is scientific, it doesn't make love any less real."

"And _I_ release your serotonin?" He asked with a smirk.

There it is; that cocky self-assured grin.

"Yes." I replied as I felt his smile causing my own lips to curve up into a smile as well. His smiles are always so infectious.

"You release mine as well, Bones."

Those words. The scientific equivalent of, _I love you, too_. He told me he loved me this morning, but the feeling at hearing it now that there isn't another woman between us is incredibly warming. I will never forget that feeling. My palms are sweating. My heart is racing. My eyes are watering. My breathing is ragged. And I can see by the way that he is looking at me, that he is cataloging that same feeling.

"I love you, Booth." I tell him, in the vernacular. It's redundant to what I had just said, I know, but for some reason, it felt right.

He's leaning in to me now. I tilted my head up slightly in anticipation, and I could almost feel his lips on mine. I could feel his breath, and I could already almost taste him. He ghosted his lips over mine, "I love you, too, Bones." He placed a soft little peck on my lips. "So much," he whispered with his mouth still over mine before our lips caressed again.

The tingle the contact sent through my body was addictive. Each stroke of our lips led to more. More contact, more lips, more tongue, more teeth.

We broke the kiss to breathe, and the smoldering feeling I had in the pit of my stomach, I can see reflected in his eyes. After a few breaths, I finally had control over my brain again. I placed a loving peck on his cheek, and then I pulled out of his arms to put some distance between us.

"Are you hungry?" I asked him.

"It's almost ten."

"When has that ever stopped us from a late night meal? Besides, there are times when I am still at the lab at ten."

He winced, and now I realize that maybe that wasn't the wisest thing to say. The reason I had stayed at the lab really late at night, recently, had been because he wasn't around to make me leave. I can see the self-deprecation. He's beating himself up over yet another thing caused by his relationship with Hannah.

"No, Booth, don't do that."

He looked at me as if I grew a third head. He sighed heavily. "Don't do what?"

"_That_. Thinking about things that you did or didn't do or things you should have done. The sighing heavy thing you just did. The hating yourself. Stop chastising yourself for this. Self-loathing won't help anything. And, besides, it wasn't entirely your fault. I'm to blame for some of those issues, too."

"Do we have to talk about this right now? I'm getting a headache."

"We do need to talk about this. If we are going to be a couple, we have to get this out of the way. There are things we need to talk about. Now is just as good of a time as any. We can go to the Founding Fathers and sit in the corner booth to talk."

"I don't think alcohol is—"

"I don't mean to sit there and drink. They have food there. I just want to sit and talk…and eat. You get grouchy when you're hungry. It'll make for a better conversation if we satisfy your stomach first."

"Alright, let's go." Booth walked slowly over to the closet and grabbed both of our winter coats.

He doesn't really want to leave the house. I can see that. I don't think he trusts himself right now. He doesn't trust himself to not drink. He's tried for so long to not become his father, and I think he feels like there isn't any use to trying any more. He feels like he's screwed up so badly that there isn't any going back to the way things used to be. Even now that things are looking up for us, I can see that he still feels like that. He's not going to trust himself for a long time.

"Are you okay?" I asked him as we walked down to his SUV. He tossed me the keys, which momentarily caught me off guard.

He doesn't trust himself to drive either. He doesn't trust himself to not drive to a place that could get him into trouble.

"No, but I will be." We got into the vehicle and shared a meaningful look before I started the engine.

He started to flip through the radio stations, but it seems like most of the stations are mostly static. The storm outside has probably knocked out a few towers.

"Why don't you dig in the CD case for some music." I tell him after he'd cycled through all the stations at least two times.

A few minutes later, he popped a CD in the player before I could see it and then he quickly changed it to the track he wanted. Just before it started playing, I looked over and he gave me a knowing smirk.

The chords of a guitar filled the space in the vehicle.

Hot Blooded.

I can feel a big smile spread across my face, and the delight and sparkle in his eyes are evident, even in the darkness.

As the lyrics come across the speakers, we both start singing. Singing our song, we both seemed to realize that we were well on our way to being us again.

The smile on his face, I had not seen in awhile. Not even with Hannah did he smile like this. Now, I realize that it's _my_ smile that I'm seeing. He uses that one just for me.

If I weren't driving, it would have been easy to get lost in that smile.

.

When we arrived at the Founding Fathers, we turned toward the corner booth, but it was already occupied. We walked over to the bar instead, and sat there for a few minutes, just enjoying being us. It's been awhile since we've been able to do this. We haven't sat here just the two of us since before Hannah arrived. Not like this, anyway. No boundaries between us. No uncomfortable tension from confessions trying to be forgotten. We both agreed to a one-beer limit to keep clear heads. I could tell that Booth was concerned, but I assure him that one beer wasn't going to turn him into his father. He glared at me briefly, but quickly got over it. Booth ordered a cheeseburger and fries and I just got cheese fries.

While waiting at the bar for our food, we noticed that the couple that had occupied the dark corner booth had vacated the table, so we motioned to the bartender that we would be taking that table.

Once seated, we had a moment of silence between us that was neither comfortable nor awkward, nervous, maybe, but not unexpected either.

Even though we were waiting for one of us to get the courage to start a serious conversation about our future and what we need to do to protect that future, things between us right this moment are… easy, promising.

We both know that this conversation isn't one that we necessarily want to have, and Booth knows that we will need to talk about what to do about his gambling problem and any underlying issues that may have triggered the relapse.

We both knew talking about it wasn't going to be easy. I had no idea what to say, so Booth saved me from having to start.

"So, I guess the first thing we should discuss is what we want out of this. What future could we have together, things like that."

I thought about it for a second before responding, "No, I'm not concerned about our future. I think we both know we want the same thing. That isn't the problem. The problem is working past what led up to the gambling. What are we going to do about that? Are you going to go to any meetings? Or can I trust that it just won't happen again? I really have no idea what to do here, Booth."

"You're right. We both know what we want, and I'm glad we're both on the same page about that. I guess I don't really know what to do next. When I had this problem before, meetings didn't help, at all. I've told you that. You were the thing that happened to me that caused the gambling to cease before."

I have an idea of where to start, but I'm afraid to mention it; I think I know who could be of some help. Help that he won't be receptive to. Help that I know I would resist if the tables were rotated? Turned? …if the tables were turned.

There was a pause in our conversation as our order was being delivered to our table. After that, I was caught up in trying to focus on the cheese fries in front of me as a distraction from what I thought about suggesting.

Booth, however, knew that my silence and focus on the food was a cover-up for over-thinking something. He gave me some time before finally asking, "I can practically hear the cogs turning up there," he gestured toward my head, "care to tell me what you're thinking?"

"Um, I don't know. I don't think you'll exactly be receptive to the idea."

"Well, I've got to do something. This isn't an option. I don't trust myself, Bones. If I can't trust myself, how can I let you trust me?"

He reached over to my plate and grabbed a cheese fry.

"Booth! You have your own fries. Leave mine alone."

"Yeah, but yours have cheese on them; mine don't. Here, take one of my non-cheesy ones." He said tossing me one of his.

"Why didn't you just dip one of yours into the cheese on my plate?"

"I wanted that particular fry."

"You are very strange. That one wouldn't have tasted any different from one of yours dipped into the cheese."

Yes, we were distracting ourselves from the conversation we were having, but we both welcomed the slight break, especially since the interaction was very much _us_.

After a few minutes of eating and meaningful looks, I broke the silence. "I know you think you can't trust yourself right now; I knew that from the moment you tossed me the keys, but I need you to know that I do trust you, Booth. One bad relapse doesn't mean the end of the world. You are still the same person with the same values that I admire and fell in love with."

"I don't want to abuse that trust that you somehow still have. I don't want to let you down."

"I fell in love with you knowing your flaws, knowing the things that happened in your past to shape who you are today. This is just another one of those events that will make you stronger."

"Thanks, Bones, really, but I don't—"

"Maybe you should talk to Sweets." I finally suggest, cutting him off. "I don't put much stock into his profession, but you do."

"I have no choice. I have to talk to him. I'll have to give Cullen a reason for disappearing during a shift. If I am not suspended indefinitely, I know part of the penalty will be that I have to talk to Sweets. It may ultimately affect our partnership, depending on what is decided."

"I figured. When I called Cullen to ask for the day off, I stated a personal emergency as the reason, and he said it had better be good. He wasn't happy, but he didn't sound unreasonable. Booth, I don't think he will fire you. Do you want to go talk to Sweets tomorrow morning? Maybe if you make the first move to get help, Cullen will see that as a positive thing and not be as harsh for skipping out on the job."

"It couldn't hurt." He looked at his watch. "It's passed his bedtime; we'll call him first thing in the morning."

"Does Cullen know about…"

"…the gambling? Yeah, he does. He's been somewhat of a father figure since I've been at the DC office. I actually lived with him and his family briefly while I tried to find a place to live after a particularly streak of bad luck."

"Really? I had no idea."

"Yeah, sore subject. I'm not proud of that moment in my life, and he was generous, but tough on me during that time."

Brennan scooted her glass around in the water rings that were being left on the table.

"Do you want me to go with you when you go see Sweets?"

"Yes. Sweets will say whether or not he wants to see me alone first or whatever, but yeah. I want you there."

"Okay. I'll go with you."

"Okay, great. So, we have a plan to address my addiction. Now what?"

"Now, we talk about us. There were a few times in the hotel where we almost didn't keep control of ourselves, so I can only imagine that now that we are free to be together that the control will be that much harder to maintain. So, do we have sex or not? Are we waiting?"

"Wow, right to the point. Uh, we both agreed that we want the same things, and that does mean eventually making love to each other. I don't think we need to set a timeline. We should just let nature take its course."

"So, what happens, happens when it will happen. No plans, no pressure." I say with a knowing smile after eating my last fry and wiping my mouth with my napkin.

"Right." He said smiling brightly.

I know what he meant, and once he saw my smile, he knew I knew what he meant. We're both responsible adults looking to build a future together. There's no point in waiting any longer than we have to. We've waited long enough. We know each other inside and out. All waiting would do is continue the tension we've had since our very first case. Tension that feels, all of the sudden, like it's being pulled even tighter than before because of the anticipation I know we are both feeling.

It would be so easy to just run out of here right now and get started on relieving that tension. He cocked his eyebrow at me, and I can tell he is thinking the same thing. I shake my head slightly at him, and he gave a relenting nod.

"So, what are we going to tell people?" I asked.

"Well, there is no sense in lying. We'll have to tell Sweets, Cullen and Cam anyways. I would like to keep the reason why a secret, but I don't think it would help me any for them to not know. As embarrassing and humiliating as this is for me, everyone knows about my past with the gambling, and it might be beneficial if they knew. That way they can help me and know to look for signs that something isn't right."

"That makes sense." I reply, nodding.

"As far as things between you and me, it really is none of their business. Like I said, there are certain people that we have to tell, but how about we just make no effort to hide anything, but we don't exactly have to offer any information up either. One look at us, and Angela will know anyways. Once she does, everyone within a hundred miles will know as well."

"That is probably very true. But what do we do if they ask questions? You know Angela will likely ask some very uncomfortable questions."

"We answer enough to keep the piranha fed, but vague enough that what is between us is still ours. How does that sound?"

"Easier said than done," I said with a roll of my eyes.

"Let me put it this way, don't tell her anything that we wouldn't tell Parker."

I nodded my head. That sounded like a good guideline for not revealing too much.

"So, no secrets, but no hiding it either?"

"Yeah, it just seems like the best way. It doesn't add any pressure on us to tell people. And at the same time, we don't have to worry about keeping it a secret from certain people and keeping track of who knows and who doesn't."

"That would be stressful. We would constantly second guess our actions towards each other, and I don't want that."

"Me either, Bones." He scooted closer to me on the round bench. "I want to be able to do this any time I want." He leaned in and captured my lips in our second kiss as an official couple.

It was sweet, tender, loving and everything I knew it would be. The familiarity of the kiss, was comforting. His taste, the warmth, the texture of his tongue gliding against mine. The feel of his warm lips against mine. His scent of sandalwood and cinnamon. The feel of his hands fisting and grabbing my hair.

There was no urgency. It wasn't driven by alcohol. It wasn't part of an agreement in exchange for anything else. It wasn't scarred with the feel of desperation.

It was perfect.

The bartender gave the last call, and Booth looked down at his watch. "Is it really this late?"

"I guess it is. Maybe we should…" I trailed off, bringing my fingers up to my swollen lips and then down around my cheeks to my chin where I could feel the slight burn of his two day stubble.

"Yeah, let's go," he said combing my hair back down into place where he had messed it up with his hands.

I returned the gesture by wiping my pink lipstick off his lips and straitening the collar on his leather jacket that I fisted in my hands.

.

Back in the SUV, we held hands silently over the center console.

"So, I guess you're coming home with me?" I asked.

"Well, I'm not going home with Hannah still there. She was very noble and understanding tonight, even though I know it hurt her. I don't want to cause any more pain than is necessary. I've got some things over at your apartment anyway, and what I don't have I can do without."

There is a silence as I was concentrating on driving on the ice that had accumulated over the past couple of hours. It had stormed earlier, but now the temperature was well below freezing.

He obviously took my silence to mean something else.

"Unless, you don't want me there. Then I could get a room somewhere, I guess." He said hesitantly and unsure.

"What? Why would you do that?" I asked him, startled by his sudden uneasiness.

"Well, I mentioned coming back to your place, and then you didn't say anything. I don't know. I thought that maybe you didn't want me there."

"No, Booth. I would rather have you with me than anywhere else. Not because I don't trust you, but because I love you. I was just trying to drive carefully, that's all. It's icy, and I can feel us sliding around."

"Do you want me to drive?"

"Honestly? For once, I would prefer if you did drive. Yes."

"Okay, pull over."

"Are you okay to drive?" I asked, just to make sure. Neither one of us drank our whole bottle of beer, so it isn't as if I'm worried about that. Who knows, maybe this will be good for him, and give him a chance to take another part of his life back into his control.

We pull to a sliding stop near the curb.

"I'll get out and come around, you just slide across the console that way only one of us risks the chance of busting our ass on the ground."

"Well, why don't _I_ get out and _you_ slide across the console? It would not do your back any good to fall on the ground, Booth."

"I'm used to walking on ice. I do it at the hockey rink all the time."

"Yeah, but what if you hit your head? I don't need to deal with the after math of…" I trailed off after seeing that he didn't wait for me to stop talking. He just decided to get out and ignore what I was saying. Cocky bastard. "Booth!" I yelled as I slid over the console and into the passenger's side so that he had room to get in once he reached the driver's side.

He got into the seat, put the vehicle into drive, and slowly headed to my apartment. I decided to give him the silent treatment all the way home regardless of how many times he tried to get my attention.

However, by the time we pulled into the parking lot for my building, I had forgiven him for ignoring me. He shut the car off, leaned over, gave me a peck on the cheek, and told me to wait here. I let him go around the vehicle and open my door, and he helped me out so that I didn't slip on the ice.

He walked me up to the building keeping a tight hold so that neither one of us lost our footing.

We didn't talk about everything we needed to discuss earlier, but we ran out of time at the bar. Hopefully, we can come to an agreement soon regarding a few more things. We've accomplished a lot tonight, and I have a feeling that more is yet to come before we go to sleep.

I can tell he needs an affirmation that I'm really in this and that I'm not going anywhere. I'm not going to run. Tonight, we will be us. Tonight, we will take another step forward, together.

* * *

**This next update could easily turn this one M rated. If anyone has any complete objections to that let me know. Originally, I rated this one T, because I didn't expect to get it this far into things between them. If too many of you feel that you wouldn't want it to go that way, then I can try to keep it rated T and keep the love there, but the details to a minimum. The only way I will be able to know what you want, either way, is if you review and let me know.**

**XOXO,**

**CrayonClown**


	6. Chapter 6

**This isn't much, I know, but I figured you would like something rather than just an author's note like, I'd intended at first. So I wrote this little transition which is designed to heighten the anticipation a little.**

**Okay, after much thought and consideration to every bit of feedback I received regarding the rating change, I have decided that this story will be moved to the M section. This is your warning.**

**Most people voted for the change, and a few said they would stick with the story but just skip the descriptive parts. No one spoke up for keeping it rated T.  
**

**If you still wish to continue regardless of the change, but are unwilling to read bedroom scenes, then rest assured that they will be written to where you can easily skip over them without missing any part of the storyline. I will also try to remember to set them off with page breaks. **

**If there is interest, I may repost this story, keeping the T rating, but just cutting out the intimate bits. **

**This one is a little different. Given that it was just a transition to prepare for what is coming up, it is not told in either of their POVs.**

* * *

Booth and Brennan walked into her apartment trying desperately to get warm. It had taken them more time than they thought it would to get from the vehicle to the building due to the ice that was on the sidewalks from the rain that had occurred earlier in the evening. Since it was late at night and all of the tenants were mostly home, the parking lot had been full. They had not managed to get a particularly close parking space. They both made it without falling, but the extra time outside had left both of them shivering.

In the elevator, Booth ran his hands up and down Brennan's arms rapidly in an effort to stimulate blood flow and to create a warm friction. Despite his efforts, she was stiff freezing. Booth had regained his normal body temperature rather quickly upon entering the building.

When the elevator dinged at the arrival of her floor, Brennan reached her hand up to his cheek in silent thanks for his efforts. The sensation of her icy hand caused him to jump slightly. He took her hand in his and rubbed his palms around it as they stepped off the elevator.

He took the keep out of her other cold hand and opened the door.

"Booth, will you make a fire in the fireplace while I go change?"

"Sure, Bones." Then he remembered it had really been forever since he had truly been in his partner's apartment. "Is everything still in the same place?" He hollered after her retreating form.

"Should be. I don't ever move anything around."

"Good," he responded back to her. "Now, let's just see if I can remember," he muttered to himself.

He hadn't really had trouble remembering where things were once he'd gotten started. It just felt foreign, something he wasn't entirely comfortable with. He hated how it felt after so long. While he found that he remembered where everything was, and even after confessing love to each other, he still felt like he was invading her space somehow; almost as if he didn't deserve to be here. Even after everything they had discussed tonight.

He found that he really hoped she would hurry up and get back out to the living room to save himself from his own mind.

Thankfully, he didn't have to wait too much longer. She emerged from her room wearing a pair of flannel pajama bottoms that looked like a result from a shopping trip with Angela. He knew that Temperance Brennan would not voluntarily purchase anything with the Disney princesses on it. Then she turned to walk over to a shelf and lit a few candles that smelled nice. As she turned, he got a glimpse of the word _Princess_ written across her ass.

_Nope, Angela definitely helped her with that one. That or put it in with her purchases when she wasn't looking._

As she turned around, he noticed for the first time the tank top she was wearing. He tried the swallow around the thick lump in his throat. It was just a simple tank. There were no designs, no lace, nothing special about it. It was the woman in it that made his breath hitch. The way the material stretched over her abdomen and come to rest a few inches above her waistline. The way it exposed those few inches of skin on her midriff. Holy Mother of God! Her navel. The cute little, seemingly forbidden, indention that seemed to have an empathic connection to his tongue, saying _lick me_.

His eyes swept up her form, his brain forming broken thoughts.

_Tank. Skin. Navel. Curves. Bones. Skin. Breasts. Whoa (horse)._

The natural volume of her nice breasts and the sight of her nipples protruding through the fabric, an indicator that she was not wearing a bra, were causing him to be on the verge of his breaking point as far as self-control was concerned. Oh, how much he wanted her. He knew that they'd talked about not setting a timeline for making love or anything else in their budding relationship, but he still wondered if it was too soon. Then again, by not setting a timeline, did that mean they were both hoping that it would happen sooner rather than later? By not setting a timeline, he had nothing to go off of. He also wondered if she would be disappointed if they didn't have sex tonight.

"Booth?" She questioned, feeling as though she were prey. Booth hadn't taken his eyes off of her since she'd walked into the room. "Booth?" She asked again, when she'd gotten no response.

He shook his head as he came out of lala land. "Hmm?" He asked, glancing up into her make-up free face. "Beautiful." He said quietly under his breath, not really intending for her to hear, but not exactly in control of what he said at the moment either.

A deep flush graced her cheeks as she sat down next to him and leaned into his warm side.

He placed an arm around her and pulled her even closer.

"Did you warm up any?"

"Hmm, yes." She replied, enjoying her body's response to his scent and proximity. "You?"

"I'm good."

"Good. Booth?"

"Hmm?" He responded with his face in her hair, resting his lips on her head.

"Not that I don't like to see you in a suit, but wouldn't you like to make yourself more comfortable?"

"Oh. Yeah." He had forgotten he hadn't changed yet in his haze of thinking about when was the right time for them. "You said I have clothes here, right?"

"I put them on the counter in the master bathroom."

"Uh, Bones? I'd have to go through your room to get them, are you sure?"

"Stop making a big deal about everything Booth. My room is your room tonight, too. My guest bed isn't good enough for your back and you are not sleeping on the couch, and there is no way I'm not sleeping next to my boyfriend tonight." She said testing out the new term. She wrinkled her nose.

_God, she's cute. Adorable._

"I find that appellation to have sounded rather juvenile. You should think of a better term for me to use to refer to you, as I won't be saying that one often, if at all."

Her vehement statement as he dislodged himself from beneath her to go change caused him to break out into a wide smile.

"I didn't expect that you would Bones, but I think I'll still call you my girlfriend." He kissed her forehead and then retreated quickly to go change so that he could get back to his girlfriend.

* * *

**Again, I know this was short, but it's better than nothing. **

**If you want me to repost a T version you have to speak up, or it won't happen. When I post the next chapter, this fic will be moved to the M section.**

**XOXO,  
CrayonClown**


	7. Chapter 7

**We start safely with non-descript T material. Then there is a page break, taking us into M territory. I tried to keep it tasteful; thoughts of a naked Booth sometimes makes my mind run wild…but not this time. Still, if you want to skip it, you can safely do so without missing anything vital to the story. Then there is another page break towards the middle where there is some important interaction, and then another page break taking us back into M territory, and then another bringing us back into T. This sounds complicated all written out like this, but I'll make sure you understand when you get there. :)**

* * *

Before I walked back towards her room and the clothes she left sitting out for me, I made sure that I would not be invading her personal space anymore than she wanted me to. I suppose that if she left them in her bathroom, on purpose, knowing that I'd have to walk through her bedroom to get them, then she obviously doesn't mind me being there. She doesn't mind me seeing the inner workings of her room. A room can tell so much about one person. A person's bedroom is often times a representative shrine of possessions and people dearest and most cherished by that person.

Then she told me that she planned to sleep next to her boyfriend tonight.

I walked into her room and looked around. Certainly, she knew I'd look around. From what I've seen on previous occasions, I only saw enough from the door as I walked by on my way to the guest bathroom to see that it's nice and neat. There isn't a lot of clutter. The colors are of earthy warm tones, beiges and browns and some soft oranges and deep reds.

Then, sure enough on the nightstand, her personal items that give testament to the life she lives. Her most important reminders. The things most dear to her sit next to the side of the bed that I assume she sleeps on.

Perhaps I shouldn't have, but I couldn't resist. I padded softly across the marble flooring in her room and across the oriental looking area rug. I sat on the side of her cleanly made-up bed as I studied the items on the side table. Her watch, phone charger, a few ponytail holder, alarm clock, lamp, ah…a photograph. I picked up the brushed silver frame and ran my fingers over the picture of me and my son; a picture that I didn't even know ever existed. She must have taken it while we weren't looking. Looking harder at it, I see that it was taken the weekend we went to see the aviation show before we left to go our separate ways, both intending to be gone for a year. She must have taken this with her, just as I had taken a picture of her and Parker, both leaning over some experiment they were doing with Bones' dad in the lab, with me to Afghanistan. I placed the photo back in its place and looked some more at the contents on the nightstand. The glass dolphin her dad had left her, sitting next to it was her mother's belt buckle. It had since been shined and polished up to look just as it had those many years ago. Then, my eyes found themselves staring at two tiny figurines that I had given her, Brainy Smurf and Jasper the pig. I'd had no idea that she kept them at all, let alone placed them among her most valued things. Sitting next to it was a crumpled piece of metal. Looking at it immediately, I couldn't really tell what it was until I'd picked it up and held it closer to me.

"It's the bullet they took out of your chest. I asked them if I could have it after they told me you had died." Her thick emotional voice startled me. I have no idea how long she'd been standing behind me as I snooped through her room.

If one could choke on air from inhaling too suddenly, I almost did. I placed the twisted and mashed piece of metal back in its place next to Jasper. "I'm so—"

"Don't apologize. Your curiosity is only natural. I don't mind; I have nothing to hide from you."

"Still, I came in here to change, not snoop."

"Is it still snooping if it's something that is left out in the open?" She asked me; she had me there. Normally, things out in the open were fair game for us without the aid of a search warrant.

Was it? I had no idea, but when the items left on display were so personal and meant so much to their owner, it did indeed feel like it could be an invasion of her privacy.

"You haven't changed, yet?" She asked, looking at me.

"Nope, didn't get that far." I responded as I stood and moved toward the bathroom.

"Would you want me to draw you a bath? I know we were going to sit out by the fire, but you look like you could use some tension relieve in your back. The water would help."

I thought about the tension that I currently carried, and it had _nothing_ to do with my back, and everything to do with the affection that I so desperately want to finally be able to show her. "Nah, I'm alright. Back's fine. I'll be back out there in a minute." I told her as I shut the door to her bathroom softly.

I tried my hardest not to do the same thing with her bathroom. Try as hard as I might, I still could not help but take notice to the little things that are so very…_her_. Leave it to Bones to have some kind of ancient Ukibinki tribal dillywop thingy hanging over her toilet. But it was more than that; it was her hairbrush, her soaps, her perfume bottles lined up on a shelf, her toothpaste sitting next to the sink, her toothbrush in the holder next to the vanity mirror.

The thing that struck me that the most, I think, is the single towel hanging next to an empty place on the rack. If things go our way, neither of us will have a single anything anymore. I'm going to make sure that from now on, my toothbrush is going to be next to hers, my towel next to hers, my aftershave next to her perfume, my comb and hair gel next to her hair products. It may take some time to get there, but I'm going to do everything in my power to make sure that neither of us is alone ever again.

I grabbed my clothes and changed quickly. I wet a washrag from the cabinet and washed my face free of the grime of the day. I smell under my arms and decide that it isn't too bad. Then I ran my tongue over my teeth. Hmm.

"Bones!" I opened the door and she was standing at her dresser placing her earrings into a small velvety jewelry box. "Do you have another toothbrush?"

"All new and spare toiletries are in the second drawer from the left."

"Thanks." I opened the drawer and pulled out the new toothbrush and set about brushing my teeth. She walked through the door that I left open and grabbed her toothbrush as well. I looked up at her through the mirror and gave her the biggest smile possible through all the sudsy paste in my mouth. She wrinkled her nose and then smiled goofily back at me. I made a silly face at her and she rolled her eyes and resumed brushing her teeth. I ran some water and spit into the sink. I leaned back up and continued brushing and as I watched her, she watched me. She spit and then I spit for a final time before taking one of the paper cups from the stack near the sink and rinsed. I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand before I flashed my clean smile at her and then left her to finish.

I was on my way out of her room to go make sure everything was locked up for the night, when I heard her call my name. I turned just in time to see her charging at me; she leapt into my arms, and I reacted just in time to catch her before she knocked us both over. The full force of her body catapulting into mine sent me back against the doorframe.

"Bones!" I yelped, unable to keep the laughter from my voice. "What are you doing?"

"I just realized that I no longer have to try to resist that goddamn smile of yours." She said beaming her own bright shiny smile.

We stared into each other's eyes for what felt like an eternity, yet it was nowhere near long enough.

"So can I expect that sort of reaction for every time I smile at you?"

She pursed her lips and looked to up and to the left in thought, "Yeah, you should probably not smile at me like that in a public venue. You might be lucky you aren't naked yet."

"Oh really?" I asked. Wow. I figured she was a pistol, but wow.

She ground her hips against mine, eliciting a groan from me.

"What's stopping you?" I asked, wondering why we aren't yet naked.

"Well, you see, one day my best friend was telling me about the difference between crappy sex and making love. As best I can tell from his speech, making love isn't something that is going to happen against this doorframe."

That was unexpected. She'd told me that maybe I was right that day, but I had no idea that she still remembered all this time later.

"We can fix that. By the fireplace or in the bed?" I asked her, knowing damn well which she'd choose.

"Bed."

"Predictable."

"What? No, I'm n—"

I kissed her to stop her refute to my argument.

"Yes, you are."

"No, I just don't want you to injure your back," she said at the same time I told her, "You're always concerned about my back."

"See?" I asked. "I _know_ you, Bones? I never stopped."

"Take me to bed, Booth. Make love to me."

She wiggled herself loose from my grip and dropped her feet to the ground, grabbing my hand she turned to pull me towards her bed. I stood stubbornly still and reeled her back to me, scooped her up and carried her to the bed under much protest, I might add.

I set her down and she stopped squirming. "Are you sure tonight's the night? We can wait if this is all too fast or too raw for you." I told her, just to make sure that she's ready. I'm not entirely sure, myself, but after everything we've been through and everything we've talked about, I know that this is going to be a good step towards healing each other's wounds.

If, for some reason, we don't go through with it tonight, that's fine. I can wait if I need to. Bones is worth it. She's worth more to me than anything else in this world. I love my son, but Bones is the love of my life. Parker is going to grow up, possibly move away and start his own family someday. Bones, well, I'm going to try my hardest to make sure I spend the rest of my life by her side. She's my partner in life. She's my future.

She nodded to me. "I'm sure. I love you."

Those three words brought tears to my eyes and brought a thickness to my throat as reality hits me full force. She loves me, and we are about to make love for the first time in her life, and perhaps for the first time in mine as well.

"I love you too." I said before opening my mouth against hers.

* * *

**(This section may be skipped.)**

I moved up to the bed and laid next to her. She leaned into me and draped her limbs over mine and mashed our bodies together.

The gentle pressure of her pelvis against mine is enough to make me feel like a nervous teenager in strip joint. I feel as if I could explode just thinking about making love to Bones. God help me when I see her, much less touch her.

Her cold dainty hands slid up the inside of my t-shirt, tracking a path up across my chest.

Before we continue, I know there is something we need to discuss, but I can't think. She's making me go stupid with what she's doing to me right now. Damn, all she's doing is kissing the daylights out of me and swirling her fingers across my nipple. I suppose her undulating hips have something to do with the spells she has over me, as well.

I'm not exactly taking a backseat role, either. One of my hands made it up her shirt on the side, granting me access to the bare skin of her torso, while my other hand vehemently made its presence known on her rear, underneath the fabric of her flannel princess pants and her dainty barely there panties, pulling her warm body into mine. When that happened, I have no idea, but my hands have seemed to have grown mini brains of their own. I don't feel totally in control of everything that I'm doing.

A few times, my mouth drops below her jaw to her neck and to the top of her exposed cleavage.

I know we're both anticipating a lot out of this experience with each other, one of those things being bringing our bare skin together in delicious friction, but for some reason neither of us seem ready to take that next step of removing clothes. We're both making the effort of taking our time to explore and get to know each other. I just hope that we're not setting ourselves up for disappointment by building things up so high to the point where normal expectations are no longer acceptable, but somehow, we both know this is going to be unlike anything either of us has ever experienced before.

I don't know how long we were making out like two teenagers afraid to take the next step, but the sun has risen above the horizon now. The soft light from the sunrise is making its presence known through the sheer cream colored drapes. We'd had the lamps on the nightstands on either side of the bed on so that we could see each other, but now that there is natural light bathing Bones' bedroom, it seems to be giving Bones' face a different glow, one I've certainly never seen before.

I pulled back to stare into her eyes, silently telling her that I'm ready when she is. Her skin was luminescent from a slight perspiration from our overheated bodies. Her face was flushed a deep beautiful pink, and her lips were kiss-swollen. Her mussed up hair. The look was befitting to her. Very beautiful.

She sat up to remove her shirt, but I stopped her by halting the movement of her hands so that I could reveal her as if opening one of the greatest gifts I've ever received. I gently tugged up on the fabric of her tank; the bottom hem catches one of the breasts sending it bouncing once released. Oh yeah, no bra. I'm staring and I know that. Hey, I'm a guy, after all. I know what I like to see and those…those are the best things I've ever laid eyes on. Beautiful. I'm mesmerized and she knows it if the look on her face is any indicator. I think she understands. I've caught her staring at my bare chest on occasion over the years. I have the perfect acromion, she once told me. Even thought I have no idea what that meant, the thought that she thinks part of my body is perfect, it thrills me to no end.

"You can touch them," she tells me, breaking the spell her breasts have on me slightly, but at least I know that I'm not going to get judo-chopped by my black-belted partner when I touch them. That's a relief.

I go for it. The creamy smooth skin of her bare breasts is unlike anything I've ever felt. The soft pliable tissue being massaged underneath my hands and spilling over through my fingers brought me to want to taste them, so I did. I dipped my head down to the ample tissue and darted my tongue out to trace light patterns over her milky skin. I closed my mouth around one of her distended nipples and sucked lightly causing a series of small tremors through her body.

Did she just…

"Bones, did you—"

"Yes," she said on a shaky exhale.

Oh, God.

My need for her just skyrocketed, and though it isn't possible my penis felt like it just grew by a foot.

"I've never done that before," she admitted. "All we've done is kiss sensually with a few moments of heavy petting; I didn't even know it was possible to orgasm from such little stimulus."

I certainly didn't know either. It was a pleasant surprise though.

Apparently, I'm wearing a smug cocky smirk on my face as I looked at her because she rolled her eyes at me and told me to get back to work because she would appreciate being naked for her next orgasm.

Me too.

We're both on our knees facing each other on the bed. I reached up and back and tugged at the back of my shirt with one hand and bunching the material in my hand, I pulled the shirt straight over my head. She pulled me against her aggressively and rubbed our now bare torsos together. I could feel the buds of her nipples dragging across my chest.

Jesus.

I pushed her back against the pillows and ran my mouth from where ours were fused together, down her throat and passed her chest down to her navel.

That sweet delicious little navel. I've wanted to do this since I saw it peeking out of that damn tank. I dipped my tongue into her cute little bellybutton, and apparently, Temperance Brennan is ticklish.

Who knew?

Her giggles caused me to laugh against her stomach as I laid kisses and trailed my tongue over her skin.

I played with the elastic on her Disney princess pajama bottoms. "Where'd you get these?" I asked. "You're always bashing the fairy tale stories, telling me how unrealistic of an image they send little girls about love."

"That's true, but Angela—"

"I figured." I told her before she finished talking. I really didn't want to talk about anyone else right now.

I tugged at the pink and purple flannel fabric, pulling it loose from her body and pulling it off of her legs. Then I grabbed the lace of her panties with my teeth and pulling them down her long smooth legs. I crawled back up to where my love lays open to me for the first time. The scent of her leaves me breathless and salivating.

"Do you have any idea how beautiful you are?"

A deep pink comes to her entire body. I can tell she doesn't know what to say back to the compliment. She clearly hasn't been told anywhere near as many times as she deserves, and truthfully, that shy unsure look she gets after receiving compliments that have more to do with her appearance and personality versus her professional career, that's part of her quirky charm that made me fall in love with her. Cocky surefooted professional; endearing, sweet and humble person. A truly beautiful soul.

I traced a finger all the way from her toes up to the inner thigh of her left leg as my mouth blazed a path up her right leg.

Once I ended up where the two paths meet, the reality hit me once again, sending more blood directly from my brain to my penis. I can't think, but I know one thing. I need her now.

"Bones, I want to taste you, and I want to make you come apart at the seams at the mercy of my mouth, but I really need to be inside of you. Now," I confessed.

She nodded in response, "I need you, too."

I slid up her body, only to realize that I'm still in my boxers.

Damn it.

I slid them down my body hastily and kicked them off, sending them flying across the room. As soon as they're off I ground our bare sexes together, claiming her mouth with mine once more.

She reached down to position me, but my brain finally catches up and remembers that little discussion we still need to have, and thankfully I can remember what for this time.

* * *

**(This section contains information vital to the plot.)**

"Wait, wait, wait. Baby, stop." I say through our kisses. "I don't have a condom." I rested my forehead against hers as I realized that as close as we have gotten right now, may be as far as we go tonight.

She doesn't miss a beat telling me that she's safe. I figured that much, but I'm not worried about catching anything from her.

"No, you misunderstood me." I looked at her, willing her to understand. She knows me well enough to know why, but I imagine the blood in her genius brain isn't exactly carrying just about as much oxygen as mine was; not very much.

"Oh!" She said wide-eyed as realization dawned on her.

"Yeah. I love Parker, alright, but he was an accident. I want to have kids with you, when you're ready, but—"

"Who says I'm not?" She asked seriously. "Booth, we have already discussed my wanting a progeny. I even asked you to be the father."

"Yeah, without being the _father_." I reminded her. "A child between us now, it would be different."

"I know," she said, seeming to convey her understanding of just how different the arrangement would be. "I want that. I want it all, Booth. We aren't getting any younger."

No we certainly aren't.

I smiled at her in response and catalogued that statement for another day, of equal importance. Hopefully, she'll remember she said that.

"I don't want any barriers between us, Booth. We've had enough of that."

"Yes we have."

"I need to feel you. If we happen to conceive tonight, which is unlikely because I'm not ovulating, I will not see it as a mistake. I believe you would call it fate."

"Okay," I tell her, finding that the thought of conceiving a child with my love to be a thrilling and invigorating thought.

I remembered our words about not setting a timeline for making love.

_What happens, happens when it will happen. No plans, no pressure._

Her words now apply to more than one aspect of our relationship, telling me that there isn't a question of if or even a when, and that tells me that our future together holds more than I ever could have hoped for giving the circumstances of the last year. Fate. I'm not sure she'd admit to believing in it anymore than she did the first day I met her, but her statement tells me otherwise. She's leaving our future up to fate and her faith in me.

* * *

**(This section may be skipped.)**

"I love you more than you'll ever know, more than I'll ever be able to tell you or show you," I told her, right before sliding deep within her.

She let out a hiss of pleasure that at first I thought was because I hurt her. I stilled my hips and made sure she was okay. She nodded telling me to not stop and that it had just been a long time for her, and I slid out slightly before going slowly deeper.

I wished with all of my heart that it had been a while for me as well; I now see what a mistake I'd made by not waiting for her, for thinking that I had to move on. I should have given her time.

She dug her nails into my shoulder and drug them down my back toward my hips. She used her hands to manipulate my body into moving faster. It worked.

She met me from below as she massaged her hands over my rear.

I nipped at her neck causing her to go into a fit of ticklish giggles once again.

I love discovering these spots on her body. I love finding which spots cause her to moan. I love seeing her body respond to me. It's my new favorite activity.

The tension is building so fast that I can only hope she'll be with me when I orgasm.

She finds the strength from below me to flip me onto my back. She starts moving faster over me as I play with her swinging breasts. I'm mumbling words that I know don't make any sense, and some of which are not even real words to being with. I also hear her words, the mantras of '_oh, yes's_ and '_oh, god's_ a few '_oh shit's _and a few other more colorful terms falling breathlessly from her usually graceful lips.

I could feel her internal muscles flutter around me as she was nearly there, even still I can tell that I'm going to get there before she does. She seemed to have read my mind, even though she'd say that was impossible. She reached between us and put pressure on the base of my penis with her finger and held it there as I orgasmed. She was still moving above me, and I wondered how that was even possible. Then I realized I was still hard inside of her!

"What did you just do to me?" I asked, so out of breath, I was unsure the question was even coherent.

"I prevented ejaculation." I reached down and helped her out by rubbing small circles on her clitoris. I could tell she was starting to get frustrated that she was right on the precipice, but could quite seem to get there on her own. She fluttered and flooded around me. The feeling of her hot bodily fluid forever being embedded in my brain as one of my favorite feelings in the world.

After she'd stopped moving from being totally under siege of spasms throughout her body, I flipped us again to finish for myself.

Her cries, shrieks and screams filled her apartment as I plowed aggressively into her. She experienced another orgasm from the different position we were now in before I finally exploded with blind passion pouring all of my love into the woman who wants it all with me.

* * *

**(This section is back to T material.)**

When we both regained our ability to breathe (and see without seeing double), we lay together talking of our future.

"That was the most amazing experience I've ever had," she admitted shyly.

I didn't say it aloud, but it was for me, too. "It'll only get better from here, Bones. The first time for anything is a wonderful experience, but I think the next time will be much better."

"How would that even be possible? Nothing can ever be perfect, but tonight was close."

I turned in her arms to face her and she moved her head from my chest onto my arm where it extended for her to do so, so that we could face each other. I ran my free hand through her tangled hair, "I just mean that next time, there won't be the first time nerves."

"Thank god. I thought I was the only one who was nervous."

"No, I was too, Bones. What we have is new and scary and intense. It's only natural to be nervous in situations like these."

"You're scared too?"

"More than you know. I really don't want to mess this up. We've got a lot for me to fix and get over, ya know."

"Yes, I know."

"I didn't know you had this picture of me and Parker." I told her, pointing to the nightstand and changing the heavy subject before either of us got too uncomfortable.

"Oh, yeah. It's my favorite one of both you and Parker. I had it with me in Maluku. You don't mind, do you?" She asked, and I hated the uncertainty in her voice.

"No, not at all. I love the picture. Can I have a copy?"

"Of course. Booth?"

"Hmm?"

"Booth, I…did you have a picture of me?"

"Yes. Actually the one your dad took of you and Parker doing some sort of science experiment."

"Oh, yes. He showed me that one. I love it."

I was almost asleep when I heard her voice again, "Booth?"

"Hmm?"

"Do you think we conceived?"

"Now, how am I supposed to know that?" I laughed, trying to keep my tone light.

"I just, I think I hope we did." She shrugged slightly. "But it would be okay if we didn't."

"Yeah," I said, knowing that if we did, that it would be alright, but at the same time I would prefer it if it didn't happen right away. I have a lot of shit to get through before we should really be having this conversation, but I feel that if we wait to have the conversation that somehow, her walls will go back up and we won't ever talk about it. Right now, we're on the same level emotionally.

"We should get some sleep for now. We can call Sweets later, okay?"

I nodded and kissed her forehead, "Sure."

"I love you."

"I love you, too, Bones. Goodnight."

"But it's not night anymore."

Typical Bones. _Wicked literal_, to use the words of our baby duck.

"Good morning, then."

"Yes, it was." She mumbled before I felt her breathing even out.

* * *

**Hopefully, I did their first time together some justice. From here on out, there will not be such an emphasis put on their intimate times. It will be more about fixing Booth's problems and focusing on their relationship as a whole.**

**XOXO  
CrayonClown  
**


	8. Chapter 8

**Sorry it's been over a month. Things have been a little crazy around here; this week, I've had three hour orchestra rehearsals every night so far, with the exception of tonight, or last night now as it's after midnight. I had planned on getting this proofed and posted on my only day free from rehearsals, we had a True Blood marathon with a few friends.**

**Also, I've taken my time with this one, because I needed there to a certain balance between the inner turmoil and fluff, and I think I've finally found it. This chapter is a little shorter than I'd originally planned. I ended up splitting it; which turns out to be a good thing, because then I can change the POV easier. There is a good amount written for the next chapter already. It will not take a month to get another update again.**

**Another one from Booth's POV.  
**

* * *

"_We should get some sleep for now. We can call Sweets later, okay?"_

_I nodded and kissed her forehead, "Sure."_

"_I love you."_

"_I love you, too, Bones. Goodnight."_

"_But it's not night anymore." _

_Typical Bones. Wicked literal, to use the words of our baby duck._

"_Good morning, then."_

"_Yes, it was." She mumbled before I felt her breathing even out._

.

I never did go to sleep after that. I could have and really should have. Things would have been so much easier if I had, but being the masochist I am, I stayed awake, watching Bones _(My naked Bones!)_ sleep in my arms.

We had just made love and it was the most incredible sensation I've ever experienced in my life.

_But_.

I couldn't stop thinking about the fact that we just… did what we did, without protection.

I didn't think it would bother me so much.

I love her and I do want more children _(and only with her)_, but right now… this just isn't the time for that. If we did conceive, am I going to resent her for asking me to do that so soon? _(God, I hope not.) _It scares me that I cannot give a definitive answer one way or the other.

I know one thing; Parker was an _accident_, not a _mistake_. I know that if I could make it through that experience, then having a child that was kind of planned wouldn't be so bad. Would it? Of course, I know we would make it, and we would be fine.

Still, I just hope that we didn't conceive this morning. Any of our future children deserve to have a father that is more stable than I feel right now. Granted, I feel better than I have for months, but I have a lot to work on before I'm okay again.

Today is going to be hard. I nuzzled into Bones' neck for the warmth and comfort. I'm calmed by the tangling of our scents meshed together all around us.

I'm not sure how long we laid together after she fell asleep, but I knew that the time seemed to be passing too fast. The time's coming nearer and nearer when she would have to leave my arms. Possessively, I tightened my grip. Had I known that would wake her up, I wouldn't have done that. _Damn it._

"Booth, you're squishing me." I heard her groan.

"Sorry," I said as I loosened my arms. I trailed my fingertips on her skin to her hips, my hand palming her skin and hipbone once it got there. "How did you sleep?"

"I don't know. I was asleep. Perhaps you could tell me how I slept since, judging by all of the physiological markers, you've been awake this entire time."

I couldn't help the incredulous look that I know had to be plastered on my face, "There are markers that indicate when someone hasn't slept? Jesus, is there one thing that isn't explained by science?"

"To answer your first question, yes. The second, no."

"Okay, well, how did you know I didn't sleep?"

She brought her hand up to my cheek. "A person when they wake up from sleep will have flushed skin, yours is not. I've seen you when you've just woken up before. Nothing I see matches those other times. Even though I am not yet accustomed to waking up in your arms, the physical contact between us was enough that I could gauge your resting heart rate. It was much too high for someone who had just been woken up. A healthy man of your age and body type who had been asleep for any length of time would have a resting heart rate of about 44-50. While awake your target heart rate would be more like 108."

"That's how you knew I didn't go to sleep? I would have figured you would have just felt me move and shift around to stay comfortable while you laid on my arm."

Her head was unbelievably heavy. I once heard her say the human head can weigh eight to ten pounds. I'm willing to guess that all of that extra knowledge in her head pushed the weight up toward the ten-pound mark.

"Well, there's that, too, and you could have told me to get off of your arm. I would have been just as happy resting my head on a pillow."

"You're right, ya know. I didn't sleep. I tried, but my mind just kept, it just kept on… going."

I shifted away from her slightly, settling flat on my back with my arm over my eyes. I feel a headache setting in from all of the thinking, berating and self-flagellation.

"Booth? Is something wrong? Did I—"

"No, no!" I was quick to assure her. "You did absolutely nothing wrong. It's me. It's my problem." The last thing I needed right now was for her to get upset, too, and scare her off. _Then who would help me through my crap._

"Please tell me. Is it something I can help with?"

"Not exactly, no," I offered up, providing no other information.

"This is not a time for secrets, Booth. I can't help, in any way, if I don't know the problem."

She's right; this isn't the time for secrets. Take the secrets of my past that I kept from Hannah, for example. Even if I weren't head-over-heels in love with Bones this whole time, the secrets that I kept from Hannah would have killed the relationship.

"I'm not ready," I blurted.

Classic case of word vomit. Great.

Well, at least now we have to talk about it.

I was not prepared for the wave of hurt and confusion that struck her face almost as if someone had slapped her and she was just now experiencing the after-shock of pain and stinging and disbelief.

_Shit! She thinks that I don't want to be with her!_

She moved to get up from the bed. "I understand; you, you need m-more time and space apparently." She was quick to find her clothes.

I leapt from the bed chasing after her. "No! No, no!" I yelled, "Bones, wait, you misunderstood. I don't mean I'm not ready for us to be together. I… will you stop putting clothes on for a second and look at me!" I shouted, more intensely than I really intended, but it had the desired effect. I had her unwavering attention. "I mean that I'm not ready for a baby."

She dropped her clothes back on the floor _(where they belong)_ and she lunged at me, "Oh, Booth! Is that all?" She asked, downplaying the issue that she knew was troubling me so that it didn't seem like such a big deal that I wasn't ready, but considering what we did, it could actually be a huge deal.

She crashed into my chest. Against me, I could feel her erratic heartbeat. She really thought that I was pushing her away.

_At least now I know that I won't have to worry about her being the one to run, and after seeing what that just did to her, I know I'm not going anywhere either._

Our future was just written in stone whether she realized it or not. I sure did.

I held her tightly to me. "I'm so sorry, Bones. I should have been more precise with my wording. I'm just not ready for a baby."

"It's okay. Really, Booth; I understand. We can wait. I'll wait as long as you need."

I dragged her back over to the bed and she sat on the edge next to me with our arms still wrapped around each other.

"I do want to have a baby with you. I do. It's just not the right time; you know? What if we, what if we did, _you know_, make a baby? What happens then?" I asked her.

"There's a morning af—"

"Do _not_ finish that sentence, Bones. I would _never_ do that to a life we may have created together."

She did the most amazing thing she could have done _for me_. The most un-Boneslike thing she's ever done. She stopped. She didn't finish that sentence. She didn't even argue with me about the scientific point at which life begins rather than just being a mass of cells.

Instead, I got a calm, rational response. "First, we take this one day at a time. I take care of myself, just in case; you can help take care of me, too."

_Does she even know that crooked smile of hers is just as effective as the Booth family charm smile?_

"_If_ I am pregnant," she continued, "then we will be fine. We'll be a family. We'll get through it together, as families do. _If_ I'm not, then we'll go on as normal. You'll get better and when you're ready, then we can talk about it again. Baby or no baby, we're family. We'll get through this together."

"Thanks, Bones."

"Why didn't you say something?" She asked timidly. "We even talked about it last night. I don't understand why, after everything we talked about in the past two days, you didn't just tell me you weren't ready."

"I don't know. I _needed_ you. We both just needed to _feel_." I told her, leaving out the part that I would give her anything she wanted or anything she asked for, regardless of the cost to me.

She wanted to feel me. She asked me to let her feel me. I wasn't complaining at the time either. I needed the intimate contact just as much as she did.

"I feel guilty now," she told me.

My eyes flashed from the floor to her face. "What? Why?"

"Because I was being selfish, Booth. I wanted to forgo the condom. I wanted to feel you. I want a baby."

"Having dreams and desires is not selfish. I was there, too. Okay? I agreed to do this without a condom. This is not solely on you. I share this burden until we will know for sure, okay? Do _not_ feel selfish and guilty for having wants and needs. Your life, since your parents left, has been filled with everyone squashing down all of your needs and wants. You're important in this, too, Bones. Never forget that what you feel matters."

"Would it be cliché to bring up the irony in that statement? You need to take your own advice. _Never forget that what you feel matters_," she repeated back to me. Damn, she's so smart. "I wish you would have told me that you weren't ready. It doesn't change how I _feel_ about you or what I _want or need_ from our lives together. I love you, Booth; that doesn't change because we're waiting to have a baby. I realized that I loved you while you were with another woman. Why, now that we're together, would my love for you wane?"

To say that I had some tears in my eyes, at this point, would be a vast understatement and a blow to my manhood. So, I'm just going to have the balls to say it. I was bawling like a little bitch-baby. Having Bones, naked in my arms, telling me she loves me and that it isn't going to change, it's just almost too much for me to handle.

And we're _waiting_ to have a baby. It's going to happen. It isn't an _if_; it's a _when._ It's a dream we both share. And while I really hope that it hasn't already been set in motion, I can feel the love I already have for the family we have yet to start, no, that we _are starting_ with just being an _us_, first.

Before I knew it, she was comforting me and trying to calm my sobs (_manly_ sobs!). She had me in her arms and her face close to my ear right ear, whispering to me loving encouragement to let it out and damn, did I. I don't know how long she simply held me, comforting me, but I know that it was long enough for my back to start hurting because of the position I was in.

And somehow, she sensed that, too. She shifted us into a better position for my back.

How had this woman gone through this much life without being taken, thus far? Why had no one else taken the time to get to know her? Why had no one else thought enough of her to stick around and fight through her defenses and come face to face, heart to heart, and toe to toe with the most amazingly wonderful person on the planet?

"Come on, Booth. We need to get up. We have things we need to do today."

"I'll, uh, call Cullen and then get in the shower. Would you mind calling Sweets and tell him to meet us in Cullen's office around two?"

"How do you know Cullen will be free to see us at two?"

"I don't," I said finally standing to walk over to the nightstand on the other side of the bed to get my phone, "but I have a feeling that he'll make time for this. Or at least he used to, you know, back then."

* * *

**I will do everything in my power to post more regularly on this one as soon as I get past all of these ridiculous three hour rehearsals.**

**The next chapter will be the meeting between B&B and Cullen and Sweets, and possibly the phone call between Brennan and Hannah, depending on how long the meeting ends up making the chapter. Also the next chapter will be from a third person POV.  
**

**XOXO,  
CrayonClown  
**


	9. Chapter 9

**This would have been posted Sunday had ff been working, but it turns out that it was a blessing that the site was down. I left out a key component and went back and added it, which also required a slight rewrite to other parts of this chapter. The part that I went back and added was Cullen's account of Booth's gambling in the past. I had planned to do that all along and cannot believe that I left that out of this meeting originally. **

**Then I planned on posting this yesterday morning. Well, I got sidetracked and didn't get it proofed, and the site started acting all wanked up again. So now that it seems to be working, for now, I figured I would go ahead and post. **

**Here we have a 7,000+ word third person POV of the meeting. I had played around with the POV and decided that this does work the best for this particular chapter. I very much enjoy writing from the minds of the characters so there won't be many others written in third-person.**

* * *

Booth and Brennan pulled up into the parking garage of the Hoover, got out, and walked to the elevator. Both dressed as they would have for a normal day of work. Booth made a point of dressing in one of his best suits. He kept the crazy tie and socks, but he knew that he needed to be presentable today, even though he felt like lounging around in his sweats (or naked with Bones, if he was being truly honest). He traded in his Vans for the dress shoes he kept in his SUV for emergencies.

On their way in, Booth felt like he could feel people staring at him. Of course, they weren't, but he felt like everyone knew; that somehow, everyone had gotten word as to just how weak, impulsive and self-destructive Seeley Booth could be. He received a few nods in greeting and respect as he walked by a few of the greens in the bullpen outside on the way to Cullen's office. He just wanted to turn around and run.

Then, coming down the hall from the opposite direction and walking towards them was Lance Sweets.

Booth wished the ninth circle of Hell would have just opened up and swallowed him whole.

The whole time the couple had been walking through the building, they hadn't even realized it, but they walked with their arms linked, as if letting go would result in a tragic loss of the other partner.

Nobody had said anything or acknowledged the closeness between them, that is, until they saw Sweets. His eyes had gone wide, and Booth could see his shrinky face ensue as he quickly processed the sight before him. Booth could tell that he thought something was up, but he still wore a look of confusion that he was sure was because Sweets did not yet know of Hannah's departure from his life.

"Are you ready for this, Bones?" He asked her in a low voice.

"I should be asking you that question. Are you?"

"I have to be," he paused, "I may not be ready, but this has to happen to prevent something worse. I cannot go down _that_ road again."

"I'm ready… to help you get better."

"This may be more difficult than you think, Bones."

"Watching you hurt? I know. You hurt, I hurt; it's one of the reasons I was so afraid to love you in the first place."

"Good afternoon, Doctor Brennan, Agent Booth…" he trailed off and paused in his tracks as he looked at them. _Really_ looked at them.

Booth looked haggard and yet seemed to have a sense of relaxation that Sweets had never seen in Booth's body language before, even with the waves of nerves Sweets could see in the agent's eyes, undoubtedly from the reason for this meeting.

Brennan had an air of confidence rolling from her that he'd never seem from her. There was confident and cocky Brennan, obviously, but this confidence seemed to come from another aspect of her life. It was a whole new layer of Temperance Brennan that he'd never seen. She looked happy, pleased with herself. Pleased with something she had done.

Brennan had her arm looped through Booth's. Throughout their partnership that wasn't unusual to see, with the exception of the past several months. Booth had distanced himself from Brennan upon his return to the District with Hannah in tow.

The familiarity of the sight before him was welcome and, in a way, relieving, but mostly suspicious. Peculiar. Definitely odd, considering their current norm of making every attempt to avoid direct eye contact, physical contact, or any sort of emotional bond that had transpired during the surrogate relationship that had been forged long ago.

After having a recent spell of minimal contact and shy awkward interaction, this was huge for them. Something in their world had shifted and he suspected that it had much more to do with their personal lives than just his gambling problems.

Even their bantering had suffered due to his relationship with Hannah.

So, why were they standing here, arm in arm, whispering to each other, making eyes at each other, looking like a…

"Oh my God! You totally _did it_!" Sweets hissed at them. He pulled them aside after hearing the hushed murmurs around them, as if that would have made the conversation in the hallway of the Hoover any more private than it had been when every head in the vicinity turned upon hearing Sweets' exclamation.

"What about Hannah?"

At this question, Booth balled his fists and, with Brennan still attached to his arm, Booth walked them both away from Sweets. He knew that he wouldn't be able to avoid the question entirely. He knew his little gambling trip and disregard for his job probably earned him several sessions with the kid at the very least, but he'd be damned if he would have the conversation in the middle of a busy hallway.

Sweets chattered fast dribbles of unsolicited information as he followed quickly behind the agent.

About halfway to the outer room to Cullen's office, Booth released Brennan's arm, whirled around, and got close to Sweets' face. He spoke in a low deadly sounding voice; the voice that he'd used on the Mara Muerte gang leader, Ortez, as he put a gun in his mouth and threatened to kill him if anything happened to his partner. "This meeting concerns my _gambling_ and getting my life back on track, not my _personal relationships_. If I wish to share that, then we may discuss that. For now, it's the gambling _only_. Do you understand?"

Sweets was stunned into silence and, quite frankly a little afraid to breath with Booth in his face.

"I _said_, do you understand?" Booth asked again, emphasizing each word slowly and deliberately.

Sweets couldn't find his voice, but he nodded.

Brennan had the guts to say aloud what he had already theorized upon hearing the need for this meeting and then seeing the two of them so close.

"But Booth, this problem had arisen from the unrest in your personal life, I don't see how it'll stay separate."

"Bones, I know that, and you know that. Let's not get ahead of ourselves. He doesn't have the right to make such assumptions out here, _where everyone and their best friend's grandmothers_ can hear my business."

"I do agree that he could at least wait until you are ready to share this information in private." She glared at Sweets. "I'm beginning to wonder if psychologists even have a code of ethics. Come on, Booth. He's here to help. Please get out of his face."

She tugged on his arm and he did back off, but then he made a grand sweeping motion with his other arm.

"Look around us, Bones." As she looked around, people were shuffling to look as if they hadn't been listening or staring. "These people are all curious to find out what my deal is. Why did I just blow off work? Why have I not shown up the past couple of days? Why do I look like I've been hit by a truck? Why—"

"Agent Booth!" Sam Cullen bellowed from the doorway a few feet away. "That's enough. All of you, inside my office now, please. Doctor Sweets, will you please pull in an extra chair?"

Sweets picked up one of the heavy wooden chairs from the outer office and dragged it into Cullen's office.

Cullen moved behind his desk as Booth and Brennan took their chairs and moved them closer together for support that the physical proximity would provide.

"Pull that extra chair over here, on the other side of my desk so that we can both face them"

Sweets looked unsure at the invitation to bring the chair behind the desk with the Deputy Director.

"Sweets, you should do as he says. Please, let's not keep him waiting. He's being very generous to change his schedule around to see us right now. Also, it will be beneficial to Booth as he places a certain value on eye contact.

"Great, thanks, Bones. I really wanted everyone to sit here and look at me and see all the wrong I've done."

She scrunched her face up into a scowl and linked her arm with his before lacing her fingers through his and then bringing her other hand to place on top of both of their hands.

"Why are you being this way? This isn't how you wanted to do this. I understand Sweets angered you by confronting the issue in the hall instead of waiting until we were in private, but you need to calm down, take a step back and focus. This spite, this malice coming from you right now; that isn't you."

Booth sat back, stared at the nameplate on the desk and squeezed Brennan's hand in thanks, letting her know that he appreciated the fact that she was there to help him through this even though he'd just snapped at her.

"It's okay, Doctor Brennan; he's getting defensive. That's a good thing. I'd be worried if he wasn't. It would indicate that he didn't care how people saw him. The fact that this whole thing bothers him enough that he's lashing out and saying things like that means that he has remorse for what he did and he wants to change it so that people, in general do not see him as that person. We can work with that."

Sweets was now situated on the other side of the desk with Cullen. Sweets had a legal pad and was already jotting things down.

"I'd like to begin, if you don't mind, Doctor Sweets. I have helped Agent Booth in the past with his gambling addiction. Would it help to hear about some of those times?"

Sweets nodded and began to write as Cullen talked about when Booth was a rookie, fresh out of the army and having just gone through Quantico, Cullen had taken him under his wing. He was Special Agent in Charge of the Homicide division back then, and Booth was placed under his command.

Cullen talked about how the amount of respect, honor, duty, pride and punctuality Booth held in high priority had all won him over easily. He told Sweets about how not many men Booth's age could have said the same for themselves.

Cullen then got to the part where it seemed like no matter how much went right in Booth's career as an agent, it seemed that he was on a fast track in a downward spiral. The concentration and focus that he'd had when he first arrived in the District was slipping away tendril by tendril.

_After a few months of working with Booth, Cullen started to notice that Booth would leave at the end of the day, and come back wearing the same suit and tie, looking as if he'd spent all night in a bar or on the street. Some nights, he had. When Cullen had tried to confront Booth about his slipping up on evidence, punctuality, appearance and errors in paperwork, Booth would get defensive. _

_Until one night when Cullen had made up his mind. He was going to help Booth, whether he welcomed it or not. Cullen followed him from the Hoover to the bank and then to a hinky bar in a horrible part of town. He watched as Booth took a wad of cash (he'd cashed his check instead of depositing it) out of his wallet. He put some money down to get in on a game of pool. He won, and then he won again, followed by another win. He had cleaned house, that time. When Booth left the bar, with the swagger of a winner, Cullen continued to follow him; it wasn't even late yet, but it was getting to be around nine, so Cullen called his wife and told her not to wait up for him. _

_The trek Booth had taken him on surprised him. Would Booth really do that? Would he go there, knowing that he had to get up and go to work in the morning? It appeared that, yes, he would. And Cullen couldn't believe it, but he was going to follow and stick to his plan to help Booth._

_He followed him on the three plus hour drive to Atlantic City. _

_Once again, Cullen watched from a distance as a young Booth placed bet after bet at the Black Jack tables. Unlike with the games of pool, Booth did not win. He did not clean house. The house cleaned him completely out. Cullen had just sat there and watched as Booth blew his entire paycheck plus his winnings from earlier. _

_Cullen knew that Booth had to be running low on gas in his SUV. He had not filled up before leaving the District and Cullen wondered what Booth had been planning to do to get home. _

_He followed behind his dejected agent as he wondered aimlessly around the floor of the casino. Every time he'd hear the machines go off indicating someone had won, he would turn his head toward the commotion and then turn to walk in the opposite direction. _

_Finally, Cullen had enough when Booth sat down at the bar and waved the bartender off, indicating that he didn't want anything to drink. Though, Cullen knew that it was more because he couldn't pay than because he didn't want something._

_Cullen walked right up to the stool next to him and took a seat. _

_Booth didn't even seem to notice that anyone had sat next to him._

"_Agent Booth, I just watched you hustle a shit ton of money from some guys at a pool hall, and then drive over three hours to come here and what? Blow everything you had? Do you even have money to get home on?"_

_Booth lowered his head to his arms that rested on the bar. He took a deep breath, but made no effort to answer the question or acknowledge Cullen's presence. _

"_Are you still going to tell me that you don't have a problem? From where I'm sitting, you've got several. For one, getting home, as I just asked. By your silence, I'm going to just assume that I'm your ride home tonight."_

_Booth sat up all of the sudden. He looked Cullen straight in the eyes._

"_What home? I was evicted by my roommates. I've been living out of the SUV for two weeks." Booth surprised Cullen _and himself_ by talking. He hadn't even wanted to say anything, much less give _that_ particular tidbit of information away._

"_By my count that's problem number two."_

"_Any others you care to enlighten me about?" Booth said with a crazed half laughing scoff. _

"_Besides those two, does being a smart ass to someone who is going to help you count?"_

"_If you want it to. You seem to be in charge of this little pep talk." _

"_Your attitude is definitely part of the problem. You didn't accept my help before, but this time, I'm not asking. Let's go. We'll talk on the way home."_

Cullen continued to tell Sweets about how he and his wife had allowed Booth to stay with them until he'd gotten back on his feet. They'd helped him when he slipped. Booth went back and forth between cleaning his life up and gambling it all away again. The worst time, by far, had been after Rebecca had broken things off with Booth after he'd proposed. He had ended up living with Cullen and his wife again.

He had, in fact, still been living with them when he'd met Bones for the first time. Brennan cut in at this point and told Sweets that he'd already been told how Booth had quit after that night at the bar with her during their meeting over his book.

Then, Booth took over, softly. "That night, after we left that meeting, I offered for us to have more than what we were. I wanted to give us a try."

"You gambled." Sweets summarized.

At this, they'd lost Cullen, but he still had a good idea what they were talking about.

"Yeah, and that was by far the worst loss I'd ever experienced. It was more than any monetary loss I'd experienced."

"Agent Booth, I would like to clarify what we're talking about here," Cullen cut in. "Am I correct in assuming this is about a personal relationship with Doctor Brennan?"

"Yes," Booth answered as both he and Brennan nodded their confirmation.

"Okay, continue please."

"Well, I lost Bones. Not really as a partner, but our friendship did take a hit. We were civil to each other, but we started having problems around the time of Taffet's trial. She expressed the need for a break from what we do. So I guess in a way, our partnership took a hit, too. Then you know the rest there. We both took a break. I lost the one person in my life that kept me grounded. I went back into war and got myself into," Booth took a deep breath, "some shit, and the guilt that comes with being a sniper and training more snipers, it's suffocating, ya know."

Brennan comforted him while he paused to gather his thoughts. Her thumb kept a steady soothing circle going on the back of his hand. He felt her squeeze his fingers one more time before he continued.

"My rock was gone. She wasn't there to help me. I found help, uh, moving on and soothing that burden rather easily. It wasn't fair to Hannah, but she was a means to an end. She was something that I thought that I needed at the time, and I shouldn't have allowed it to continue, but it was easy. When Bones and I came back, we weren't the same. We tried, but we weren't us. Everything changed. We clashed and grinded and avoided each other until Bones admitted that she'd made a mistake that night, and then I felt everything I felt before, tenfold. I was with Hannah. I felt like I couldn't win, in either situation. And the real shits of it all was the fact that Hannah and Bones were friends. I'm not a cheater. But I felt like I was openly cheating on Bones, and some of the things she said over the last few months really made it hit home that much harder. Then when Bones admitted to making a mistake and having regrets, as much as it hurt to turn Bones down, I didn't want to hurt Hannah either. I'm not that guy. So suddenly, what I had with Hannah didn't taste so great anymore. It left a bitter taste in my mouth to know that I didn't give Bones enough time to make a decision. I should have known better. She doesn't just jump into things without really thinking them through. I don't know why I thought that this should have been any different. I didn't get the answer I wanted, so like a big baby, I gave up and went away to pout and lick my wounds. To know that I could have had what I wanted, if I'd just been patient—it gnawed at me worse than the guilt from doing what I did as a sniper. I could have had Bones, and it tore at me."

"Booth, do you feel that one factor in the first time you fell to gambling was the PTSD that I have documented in your file from another psychologist?"

"Which time?" Booth asked. "The one after being held captive in Kosovo while they beat my feet or the one after killing that kid's father on his birthday? There's been two other cases during which I've struggled with PTSD. Or are you simply wanting me to make a connection that the gambling is part of whatever coping blah blah blah—"

"Let me change the direction of that question slightly. Can you elaborate on what exactly brought on the gambling relapse this time? Clearly, the others were trauma related. Based on what you said, I have my guesses and theories. I'd like to hear what you have to say first. With PTSD, sometimes the reason is more concealed than that or it may be one of the most obvious concepts to someone on the outside looking in."

"I was having lunch with Hannah at the diner, but after she left, I had this moment of sensory overload. Every sound was, God, it was as if I was in a casino. The cash register ringing every time it opened, the people, the clanking of silverware and coins. I got anxious, and I left. I had to get out of there. I drove around for a little bit, but before I realized what I was doing, I was already half way to Atlantic City. Then I figured, why not. Ya know? Why not just keep going? Why not make a visit to my old casino of choice. I had just gotten paid and everything. I could afford to just do a little, but I didn't go in search of losing it all."

"Booth, no one gambles to lose. It's about the winning."

"There is nothing like when everything else in your life is in a shit pot and you beat the odds and win a ton of easy cash," Booth said which slightly labored breathing as he recalled the sensation that he'd felt n many occasions. "The disappointment comes when you think the luck will continue and you end up being very wrong. Then you try to win it back and end up losing it all just to get back what you started with. It's a never ending cycle. At least this time, I didn't give myself time to find a loan shark. I called Bones, right after I blew everything. I knew I needed help."

"Why didn't you call Hannah? She's your girlfriend." Sweets asked, intentionally making the question refer to Hannah in the present tense.

"She was at the time, yes, but I—she doesn't even know me. I never told her about that part of my life."

"Did you tell her anything about your past?"

"No." Booth didn't offer any explanation and Sweets didn't ask.

"You said that she was your girlfriend at the time. Has that changed?"

Booth glared, remembering the hallway incident. He didn't want to have this conversation, but knew that it was necessary. "We broke up, or more accurately I told her that it wasn't going to work out when I love Bones. She understood. She didn't want to be my second best. We both know she deserves more than that."

"So what I heard when I walked up about Doctor Brennan loving you, that was real? And When I asked you, rather crudely I'll admit, if you guys—"

If only to halt the question, Booth answered quickly. "Yes, we have, but that's not why we're here."

"Actually, I think it is. Booth you've dealt with PTSD from your childhood, from being tortured, from dealing with the guilt of taking lives as a sniper in war, you dealt with it after you'd been kidnapped by Taffet, and to an extent, you dealt with it after you had your brain tumor removed. All of these things altered how you perceived life. They altered how you approached different aspects of your life. Most importantly, they altered how you've dealt with similar occurrences after the fact. You've made it through all of that. But the one thing that has really tripped you up to have kept you stumbling this whole time has been the rejection of a relationship with the woman you love."

Booth looked as though he were going to interrupt, but didn't. He was still ready to jump in and protest at the slightest disagreement.

"You've heard all of this before. PTSD manifests itself in several different ways. One of them being impulse control. There have been times when you haven't been able to keep complete control."

"Like when you shot the clown on the ice cream truck or when you shot the amp when those death metal guys wouldn't talk to us. Or how about the time—"

"Bones! I get it, okay." He looked at her and willed her to stop. He was fully aware of all the times he'd lost control over the past few years, even the ones she wasn't aware of. He didn't need them all recounted so that Sweets and Cullen could use them against him in whatever punishment was given. He turned his head back to Sweets, "So you're saying that my gambling is part of my inability for impulse control, and when I gambled on a relationship, it was an effort to gain control over something?"

"That's overly simplified but, yes. Impulse control can also develop because of childhood trauma or devastating life events. When something happens in life that is painful, human nature tells us to find ways to control that. We try to find ways to control that pain. Sometimes we find ways to make it hurt less, but other times, we find other things that hurt us in a different way that is a distraction from the things that hurt us the most. Your brain tells you that if you cannot control one situation to _create_ a situation that you _can_ control. Gambling is creating a way of taking control of that pain back. Even though it actually has the exact opposite effect, it feels to you as if you are making the choice to be there in the first place. You are making the choice to stay. You are making the choice of when to quit. But most of the time, with addicts, those choices are never actually made."

"Can we get to the point," Cullen asked. He'd been patient with the young kid as he spilled his theory, but now he wanted to move this along.

"This isn't about your history of PTSD, which is something that can be managed—as you have done— but it never fully goes away, nor did it have anything to do with your father this time. This is about something that devastated you, perhaps more than you even realized. You came out of the coma feeling love for Doctor Brennan. Despite what I told you then, I don't think that feeling ever went away completely or was ever forgotten. The sting of rejection from the woman you love was more than you could bear. You never had control when Doctor Brennan turned you down. You didn't have control when she needed a break. And you didn't have control when she came back ready and you were with someone else. This lack of control fed the need to exert control over something, _anything_. You went back to gambling. So, yes, this whole thing, I believe is deeply rooted with your love for Doctor Brennan and the need for a relationship with her."

"So now that we're together, does that mean that it won't happen again?" Brennan asked, she knew Booth was thinking the same thing, but she knew the answer was no. She wanted to be sure he knew because she wasn't sure he would ask.

"No. The thing about addiction is that it is still addiction no matter what brought the urge on. He's had that taste of the game recently. He's going to struggle. It's going to be hard. There are consequences to his actions. He left during work hours. He disappeared without letting anyone know he was leaving. He was completely unreachable and he'd left a paid contractor waiting to process evidence. He blew his whole paycheck. How is he going to pay rent, child support, and bills or for food?"

"I'll help him figure that out," Brennan told him.

"Bones, I don't want to owe you money. It never helps a friendship to owe money."

"Booth, I have so much money that I'll never spend. Let me help you. Besides, you and I are not just friends."

"You know, I'm not completely broke. I left my bank account alone. I just spent this month's check. I can manage for a little bit. I may not be able to pay it all, but if I need help, I'll ask for it."

"We'll talk about it later."

Booth nodded.

"This isn't all going to be solved just today," Sweets added as he closed his legal pad for now, "I'm making an official recommendation for Agent Booth to remain in therapy for the time being. We're going to start with twice-weekly appointments. The duration of therapy will be determined as needed. Doctor Brennan, there will be times when I may need you to attend with him."

They both agreed and Cullen had his own bit to add.

"Doctor Sweets already touched briefly on consequences. I have a few that we need to discuss. A few of them protocol, and a few of them on a more personal nature. Doctor Sweets?"

Sweets looked over to Cullen, "Yes, sir?"

"I understand that you have an appointment to get to. Your presence is no longer required. If you need to leave you may do so."

"Yes, sir, actually I do need to go. Booth, I'll call, personally, to set up our first appointment."

"Don't sound so excited about it. I know you've been _dying_ to have us back in therapy since we stopped," Booth quipped. He couldn't help it. The kid's tone was just too bright at the prospect of calling, _personally_, to set up an appointment, almost as if the kid were waiting for a long-awaited release of a video game.

"Booth, I don't know about you, but I don't see anything about this that I look forward to. I am just eager to help you through this. That's all. I don't like to see anyone on our team hurting like this. I understand the severity and sensitivity of this situation. I'm familiar with your past, your tendencies, and your amazing willpower to persevere. I'm looking forward to assisting you with that. I hate the circumstances that you find yourself in, but really, I'm on your side and I would _appreciate_ it if you didn't attack my motives here."

Booth was actually on the verge of tears. He'd been able to keep himself in check thus far, but couldn't help the trickle of a tear that formed. He couldn't say anything other than, "I'm sorry," as he nodded his head in genuine thanks.

Sweets shut the door behind him and Cullen made a quick call outside to his secretary to remind her that they were not done in there and that he wanted no interruptions.

"Agent Booth, I first want to cover the personal aspect of this. I need you to remember that we are all here for you, should you need help with anything. I'm very glad that you were able to call Doctor Brennan when you needed help. My wife and I will always be here for you as well."

"Thank you, sir."

"I'm going to impose some guidelines that I want you to follow. You remember the rules you lived by when you lived with us?"

"Yes. Those now apply once more. You may not be living with us, but I expect you to follow them. Perhaps we should go over the rules for Doctor Brennan."

"Okay." He nodded.

Brennan nodded as well. She took out a pen and pad of paper. She wanted to make sure she had everything written down so that they didn't skip out on anything that could harm Booth's chances for recovery.

"The first rule was that he was to go straight home after work. No exceptions. He was not to go get dinner first. He was to go straight to the house. If he wanted take-out he would have to have it delivered or tell us he was going to go get it. He had a time limit as to how long he could be gone. He could not go anywhere without telling someone exactly where he is going or having someone with him if it required spending more than fifty dollars."

"Isn't this going to be hard to enforce with him living at his apartment with no one there to corroborate his whereabouts?" Brennan asked.

"That is a problem. I'm sorry to say this, Booth, but I don't trust you by yourself right now."

"_I_ don't trust me by myself right now." Booth looked away. That admission was hard, but it was almost a relief to have said it aloud.

"He could stay with me," Brennan offered. "If I am going to help him, it might be beneficial for him to remain close to me."

"Bones, we just entered a relationship. I am not moving in with you, yet. I need some time."

"I didn't offer for you to move in with me. I offered to let you stay with me, for just a little while."

"Doctor Brennan, this is going to take more than a couple of days or weeks. It is a long term process; he would be essentially moving in with you."

"Oh." She sounded disappointed, Booth noticed. Then he mentally kicked himself, yet again, for making her feel like he didn't want to be with her or close to her.

"Bones, I'm sorry. I'm just not ready to _live_ with you, yet. I will be at some point, but I just—Hannah _just_ moved out of my apartment. I just need time before I cohabitate with anyone else."

"Oh, well, maybe you would prefer to stay at your place. I could come stay with you," she offered, not ready to let this go.

"Bones, I would rather not go back to my place for a while until I forget what her presence there is like, please."

"Your other options are Sweets, Jack and Angela, or Cam… On second thought, I veto Cam. You will not be staying with an ex."

"I am not staying with Sweets; he'll psychoanalyze me every time I take a breath. Jack and Angela, no way; not happening. Angela is too nosy. She'll constantly be on me about why Hannah and I aren't together. And she has some freaky sixth sense about relationships and sex. She would know, and then she'll pry into that as well."

They'd completely forgotten about Cullen sitting there, but since everything was out in the open, they had nothing to hide anyway. Cullen just sat back while they worked this out. It was an important issue to work out before they moved on to something else.

"You said you didn't want to hide our relationship."

"Right, I don't, but at the same time, I don't need her asking for details of our sex life while I'm trying to get better. She'll get me alone and corner me, and—"

"Okay, okay! I get it. You're right; you do not need Angela on your case every time you turn around. Another reason to stay with me, unless…" she trailed off and looked to Cullen.

"Oh, no. Don't look at me. My wife and I have moved into a smaller place since Amy's death. We don't have room. Otherwise, I'm sure we wouldn't have a problem with taking another tour of Booth duty."

"Booth duty?" Brennan looked amused.

"That's what we'd come to affectionately refer to allowing Booth to live with us during times of his recovery."

"See, Booth. It wouldn't be moving in. I've got Booth duty." She shrugged and talked softly as she faced him and looked him in the eyes.

"Booth, I really would advise it. You don't want to go home and you don't seem to have anywhere else in mind."

"Okay, fine. I'll stay with you, Bones."

"If you ever just need space of your own, the guest room is always there. There's a TV in there. My dad purchased it, not too long ago, for when he stays over on occasion."

"Thanks, Bones."

"Okay, so we've got rule one covered. Rule two, I had control over Booth's bank account. I mentioned before that he had to have someone with him to sign off on purchases over fifty dollars. That is easy to set up at the bank. You can decide if you want to do that. Rule three, I personally took Booth to all of his meetings and therapy sessions regarding his gambling so that I knew that he actually attended. I would advise you to do the same. He needs to earn the trust back."

"Anything else," Brennan asked as she finished writing.

"Not the personal rules that we imposed on him, no, but if you think of any that may apply you could always add them. Now there are the professional consequences as well."

Booth shifted in his seat. Brennan reached over and placed a hand on his thigh to get his leg to stop shaking.

"I still have a job, right?" Booth asked, timidly.

Cullen's face went hard as steel and it was evident that now he was trying to be the authority figure in this situation rather than the really good friend that he actually was. He'd had to pull a few strings to allow Booth to continue in his current job. Director Robert Mueller had suggested termination based off of the fact that not only did Booth leave work while he was on duty, but he'd prevented the processing of evidence in an active case at the time of his departure to go on a gambling binge rather than picking up and delivering the evidence that Charlie had in his possession. He'd been none too thrilled at learning that. Cullen had been able to talk him down from termination to a severe, but far less so punishment.

"Agent Booth, Director Mueller and I have had a couple of heated meetings regarding punishment for your actions. You left Doctor Brennan waiting for evidence. She's a paid contractor commissioned by the FBI, you wasted valuable time and resources of both the FBI and the Jeffersonian Medico-Legal Lab. Do you realize that during the time that she was waiting to analyze this evidence, a murderer could have had time to do more to cover his tracks. That case already had you guys running through hot coals to stay neck and neck with the suspect. I was able to talk him out of bringing up charges against you for obstruction. The merit of your background had a lot to do with that. It's been agreed upon that you will still have your current job title and duties, as soon as you are finished completing therapy with Doctor Sweets. He has to clear you, first. Until then, you have desk duty. In addition to logging evidence, pulling files and background checks, and assisting with other office duties such as tracking people down by computer databases, you will assist on paperwork regarding evidence and cases with the Jeffersonian team and their temporary liaison. This will allow you to keep working with your team and monitor how the agent is doing as he fills your job duties. I know you do not like Doctor Brennan to just work with anyone, but unfortunately, the only agent we have available for the job is a rookie and he will need help wrangling the technical jargon and the extra paperwork that is required for cases that are normally given to you and Doctor Brennan. I'm giving you an unofficial order to keep an eye on this agent. He is essentially your responsibility. He will report to you and consult with you before anything is decided or action taken. This does not give you free reign to leave the office to go assist. He comes here, he consults, and then he goes to do your job. You're just going to have to earn your trust back around here, Agent Booth."

"Okay, I understand. What about my relationship with my partner? Isn't there some policy…"

"Yeah, but right now all I _see _is two best friends helping each other through a tough time. We'll deal with that later, after I look into a few things regarding that policy to see what I can do to keep our best team together. Right now, we're just going to deal with the moving on from this. No one outside of this meeting knows about…"

"Actually, Doctor Sweets was quite loud in his observation that Booth and I appeared to have _done it_. That's why Booth was rather agitated when you came out into the hallway earlier."

Cullen rubbed his hand over his face in frustration.

"I'll have a talk with him about public discretion regarding your new relationship. Let's just deal with one thing at a time."

"Thank you, sir."

"One last stipulation." He said as the partners prepared to take their leave.

* * *

**CLIFFY! Dun, dun, dun.**

**Don't worry. I'll relieve you now and say it isn't bad.**

**XOXO,  
CrayonClown**


	10. Chapter 10

**I present you the long awaited resolution to the slight cliffy from the previous chapter. Sorry it took so long. From now on, I'm going to try to get most of my fics updated at least on a weekly basis. Seeing as we are in the last three weeks of school, that may not be entirely possible until that's over, but it's a nice goal to shoot for. **

**This chapter has a lot in it. This chapter is also in 3rd person POV. Not as psych heavy as the last one, but still a lot of progress.**

* * *

"_One last stipulation." He said as the partners prepared to take their leave._

.

The ride back to her apartment was mostly silent. He concentrated on driving them while she stared out of the window watching as objects passed by.

The silence wasn't exactly comfortable. Cullen had let them leave with some parting words. One last stipulation, he'd called it.

But now it was the elephant in the SUV.

The partners were glad that they were together and working through things, but each secretly hoped that Cullen's words wouldn't scare the other away.

Booth had a tendency to hang onto all feelings until they built up into an uncontrollable energy that gets let out all at once, and results from the past show that this method has been extremely effective in getting him the exact opposite of his desired outcome. One such example would be the night outside of the Hoover when he'd offered her everything and scared her.

Brennan didn't even bother to hide the feelings. No, she always pushed them aside and pretended they didn't exist. She found other things to focus on. She'd always thought herself successful at doing so, until Seeley Booth walked into her life and saw that she not only had a heart and feelings, but she had one of the most passionate hearts and some of the strongest feelings he'd ever seen anyone have. No wonder she tried to close them up into tiny boxes and pretended they didn't exist, pretend that they didn't have any impact on her life or decisions. Passion and feelings like _that_, that's the kind that has the potential to drive one mad. In her job, if she allowed herself to feel, even a fraction, the tragic sadness of each victim would slowly kill her. Unfortunately, it was never just her feelings about victims that she hid from, it was everything in-between as well.

That's why when Cullen had told them, "_I'll be expecting an invitation to your wedding someday_," they both were bombarded by the overwhelming feeling that everything was too much, way too fast, but not for themselves. They were actually each afraid that the comment would scare the other one away from what was finally going right for them.

If only they would talk to each other, they would both know that the remark could have some truth to be found in their future, but they didn't; they chose silence. It was what they had always fallen back on. Silence was familiar; though they both knew that they would have to talk about it before they slept or it would continue to eat at what they were trying to build.

It wasn't until they were making dinner together that night that the topic finally came up.

Booth was putting vegan cheese on her side of the pizza when he decided to bring it up.

"What Cullen said today…" He paused trying to figure out what he was trying to say.

"… Surprised me," she finished when he paused slightly. "Though I wouldn't be against getting married at some point. I know I haven't always been favorable of the modern practice of such an archaic institution, but over the past few years, you've given me tools to help see that it wouldn't be such a bad thing to be married under the right circumstances, with the right person." She looked back down to the French bread that she'd just sliced up to make garlic bread.

"Wow," Booth laughed, feeling extremely relieved. He placed the last piece of pepperoni on his side of the pizza. "I was afraid that hearing the word marriage would send you running to Antarctica of something."

That stung, but she deserved it, she supposed. She did run after he told her that he wanted to try for more than partners.

He turned to put the pizza in the oven and set the timer and then put the garlic bread in the toaster oven.

"Booth, no more running," she told him seriously before laughing to herself as well. "Besides, I was sure that _you_ were the one who was going to run. We've talked about your gambling and our developing relationship, but given what you knew of my views of marriage at the time of the comment, I can see why marriage would be a topic you would avoid around me."

He took her hand and walked them out onto her balcony to watch the sunset as their food cooked.

"I'm not even going to question what made you change your mind on the subject. So, are we both agreeing that there is a possibility that if asked, in the future, that you would agree to marry me?"

He placed his arms around her waist and pulled her closer.

"If I answer that question now, wouldn't we technically be engaged?" She asked with raised eyebrows.

The adorable expression on her face and the implication of her question, that she would say yes, told him that he needn't worry.

"How about… engaged to be engaged?" He asked moving closer to her face with his own.

Remembering the phrase from their time in Vegas, one corner of Brennan's mouth upturned into a smirk. "Yes, I would say yes."

"In the future, when we are ready," he said getting closer still, until his lips hovered directly over hers, touching just the slightest bit, "I will ask you to marry me, and you will say yes."

"I will say yes," she confirmed against his lips, before taking them with her own in a slow gentle kiss to seal their agreement.

Had they not had food in the oven that was about to be done, they would have spent a little more time making out on the balcony after the sun had set. They went inside to set the table and pour drinks.

"What are you going to have? I've got beer, Sprite, wine, scotch—"

"Sprite is fine," he told her as he took the pizza out of the oven.

She grabbed a Sprite for both of them and popped open the cans and poured them into their glasses after filling them with ice.

"I need to see Parker soon." It seemed like the comment came from out of the blue, but the truth was that he'd been thinking of how much he'd let his boy down lately.

During the past several months that Hannah had been living with him, he'd cut back his contact with Parker since he was not about to introduce a woman to him that may not work out. When he finally had introduced them to each other, Parker had been less than thrilled and spoke a lot about Bones during their time together, which made Booth feel even guiltier than he did. Not wanting to feel that guilt every time he saw his son, Booth came up with excuses not to see him. He'd say they were working on a tough case, had to attend some meeting or that he was not feeling too good.

He really owed his son an apology, and possibly the truth about why. He was old enough now, right?

She walked over after he'd set the pizza down. She put the pizza cutter on the counter next to the pizza and she took his face into her hands.

"I'm sure he would like that. When would you like to see him?"

He pulled away from her slightly with tears threatening his eyes.

_God, when did I become such a girl?_

He slammed his hand down hard on the counter and caused everything sitting on top of it to rattle.

"That's the thing. I'm not sure he _wants_ to see me." He turned away from her toward the counter next to her refrigerator and braced himself on his arms facing the cabinet as he spoke more calmly, "I've cancelled our time together too much lately, and Rebecca said this last time that she called that he was mad at me. I guess he's old enough to see through all of my excuses. I let him down, just like everyone else. Now he's acting out."

"You're his father, and if he's getting pissed that he hasn't seen you lately, then you _know_ that it is because he _wants_ to see you. We'll set up a time for some father-son time, okay."

"I'll have to tell him… everything. The gambling, the breakup, us… I can't keep any more secrets from him."

She ducked under his arms and got between him and the counter, forcing him to look at her or daring him to turn away again. He stayed and looked her in the eyes as she spoke.

"We aren't hiding what we are, remember? I know we agreed to just let people find out however they see it and figure it out on their own, but Parker is the _only_ person who deserves an explanation. And I don't think that it would be such a bad thing to hear from you about the addictions that run on your side of the family. Your father, brother, you… he needs to know what he's up against as much as he needs to know about the change in us."

"You're right, but how do you tell your kid about stuff like that and still keep him ignorant of the cold hard facts of the world outside of childhood?"

"You cannot shelter him from it forever; he does need to know so that he has the mind frame set up to help him avoid a similar outcome," she brought one hand up to trace his jaw, "which I know is the very last thing you would want for him."

"Damn it, why do you always have to be right?"

"I'm far from it. I was wrong many times before we started to get this right, but you need to realize that not everything is going to fix itself right away. It will take some work to fix everything, including your relationship with Parker. He's old enough to know something isn't right, which is why he's mad. I think that means he's old enough that you need to be honest with him or risk hurting that relationship more."

"When did you become the people person?"

"The second you needed me to step up to the platter."

Booth chuckled at her misuse, "Plate."

"What about them? They are on the table." She said with a smirk that told him she knew exactly what he was telling her.

Booth cut the pizza and brought the pan and the garlic bread over to the table. "Dig in, Bones."

After dinner, Booth decided he needed a shower and Brennan saw this as her opportunity to put an end to her curiosity and follow a request she wasn't sure she had the energy to do at the moment, but it was the perfect time with Booth otherwise occupied.

She opened her phone and pressed speed dial number six.

"_Hello."_

"Hi, Hannah; it's Temperance. You wanted me to call you? I'm sorry it took me all day, but I've had a lot to do."

"_Yes. Um, I bet today was very busy. How is he?"_

"Doing better. We talked to Sweets and his boss today. He's slowly realizing that it's more than the relationship between us that's been strained and that it's going to be a long road to recover everything that's been effected by this. How are you holding up?"

"_I'm fine," she lied._

"Hannah, I—"

"_No, I will be fine, Temperance. I just need some time. I told you yesterday that I still wanted to be friends, but I'm no longer sure I can pull that off. I've had a lot of alone time to think things over, and I—"_

"I understand if you can't. I know how hard it is to see the man you love be with someone else. I watched him with you for several torturous months, Hannah."

The line was quite for a moment before Hannah spoke again.

"_Can I ask you a question?"_

"Sure."

"_How could you stand to be around me during all of that, knowing that it could have been you if you had taken the chance?"_

"Honestly, I just wanted him to be happy, even if it made me a little bit sad because I didn't feel like I could be the one to give him that happiness, and you were very hard to hate." Brennan laughed, "There were so many times that I tried, but you're a good person and I wanted Booth to have that in his life."

"_I think that I would like to try that. I want to like you, but right now, I just can't, Temperance. It's almost as if you were the other woman that I didn't know about even though you were right in my face the whole time. I just need some time to get over this. I've talked to my old boss. My old post isn't still open, but he said he'd find me something."_

"I wish you the best Hannah. I hope you find the life you're looking for."

"_I'll email you to find out how Seeley's doing. I still care for him."_

"I know. Let me know where you end up and when you're ready to talk about being friends again."

"_Okay."_

"Stay safe, Hannah."

"_Goodbye."_

"Bye."

Brennan hung up her phone and sat on the couch for a minute and just listened to the sounds of her partner getting dressed in the other room. His shower hadn't taken long, but she was glad that she had finished the call before he came back out. It wasn't that she wanted to hide it from him, she just didn't want to upset him.

As he was getting dressed in her room, he thought about the fact that he really only had three sets of clothes with him. The suit he wore when he went to Atlantic City, the spare set of clothes that Brennan had at her apartment, and the good suit that he had Brennan run into his apartment to get this morning before their afternoon meeting. He also only had two pairs of boxers. He put back on the cleaner pair of boxers and put on the suit he'd worn that day and went out to the living room.

"Bones we need to go to my apartment to get some things. I need more clothes and my personal stuff like my razor deodorant, aftershave, and other stuff."

"I was wondering when you would realize that you needed some things from there. You're dressed in your suit again. Can I assume you're ready to do that now?"

Booth nodded.

"Okay, let's go then."

.

Upon parking the SUV, Booth sat still for a few minutes before finally taking a deep breath and opening his door. Brennan followed his lead. She waited for him to make the move, as she didn't want him to feel like she was rushing him along.

He took another deep breath as he opened his door. Looking around, he noticed that things hadn't even really changed. The only thing he really noticed was the key left on his coffee table with a note that he didn't feel like reading right now.

He told Brennan that he'd just be a moment, and he went back to his room and quickly started throwing clean clothes haphazardly into one of his large army bags. He also got out his largest garment bag and put as many of his suits that would fit in there as possible. He grabbed personal hygiene products from his bathroom, but on his way out of the bathroom, he looked around once more.

Nothing had really changed.

It was as if she hadn't ever really been present in the apartment. She had always managed to keep all of her girly products hidden, which he was thankful for. The only thing different about the bathroom was that her shampoo was no longer sitting on the floor next to his claw foot tub.

When he entered his room again, his eyes took in the space once again noticing, nothing had changed. The bed was made, the nightstands held his knickknacks and old alarm clock, but the only thing noticeably different at a glance was the fact that her shoes were no longer lined up next to his. The only lingering presence she left was behind was her scent on his bed. On his way out of the room, he dropped his duffel and hung the garment bag on his door knob, and turned back around toward the bed. He ripped the sheets and covers off and threw them in the hamper. He grabbed clean linens from the closet and replaced them on the bed. Satisfied that her scent was gone from the room, or would at least fade by time he came back, he grabbed his bags once more and headed toward his Bones.

He grabbed the key and the note off of the coffee table. He crumpled the note and shoved it into the side pocket in his bag and gave the key to Brennan.

"I'm going to need you to use that to come here and clean the laundry that is in the hamper sometime when you have time to do so."

"I'm your significant other, not your maid," she said stubbornly, but the pleading look on his face told her that she needed to give him this. "Okay," she agreed, still not really knowing why, but she placed the key on her key ring. "Do you have anything in the fridge or pantry that you need to take care of so that it doesn't spoil and leave your kitchen a biohazard?"

"Uh, yeah, probably." He went to the kitchen and poured the milk in the sink. He grabbed one of the green bags that she'd made him buy one day, and started placing items from his fridge inside. He took the carton of eggs and the packages of meat and also grabbed a few things that he liked out of his pantry because he knew that Brennan didn't have much that he would enjoy to snack on. "I know meat isn't your thing, but I don't want it to go to waste, and if you need me to, I'll cook it so you don't have to."

"I don't mind cooking meat for you, but I won't budge on eating it."

"Good, and I won't eat your tofu sh—"

"Booth! You've had it before. You said you liked it."

"_Liked_ is not the word I used. I said it was tolerable. Definitely not something I will willingly have when I could have a nice steak or cheeseburger."

"Sometimes I worry about your red meat intake, Booth."

"Can we just go please? While being here isn't as bad as I thought it would be, I just want to get settled in for the night."

"Okay, let's go."

.

The next morning was Booth's first day back on the job. Booth was sitting in his office at his desk waiting for his first assignments as a desk jockey to come around. One of the first orders of business when he got there was to sign over all of his cases to Agent Green.

_How fitting, _he thought of the new agent's name.

While he waited, he decided to call Rebecca to fill her in on everything. To say she was disappointed was an understatement, but she understood that he was working on it and that he had a good support system and failure was not an option for him. He told her about Hannah being out of the picture and his new relationship with Bones. Rebecca was concerned that it was too soon, but Booth told her that he was afraid that it wasn't soon enough and that's why everyone was in the mess they were in. He, once again, tried to place full blame on himself.

They talked about Parker and how he was doing in school, but it seemed that Parker was not doing as well as either she or Booth would like for him to. He'd been acting out, using inappropriate language, and just being rude to everyone he came across at school. Rebecca told Booth that today was Parker's third and final day attending In School Suspension for telling a teacher that, "if she wanted his homework done so badly, that she could fucking do it herself."

"I'm sorry. My seven months away and my lack of presence in his life since being back has probably had a huge impact on him. I'm calling because I want to make things right between Parker and me, and it sounds like he needs an attitude readjustment. Could I have him for the weekend?"

"_I'm not sure he'll want to."_

"This isn't about what he wants. It's what he needs. He needs to know that I'm here, trying to be the best I can be for him. I understand that he's angry, but he's got to understand that I'm trying to fix this and that his behavior is unacceptable and will not be tolerated."

"_I know, okay. When I pick him up from school, I'll bring him to you. You said that you're current job is to "sit at your desk and rot away while a green agent does your job", so maybe he could sit with you there until you go can go home."_

"Yeah, it'd be fine, and I've got enough stuff around here to keep him occupied for a bit. Thanks, Rebecca."

"_No problem; you know I'm here to talk if you need it, right?"_

"Yeah, I know. Thanks."

"_I'll see you later, Seeley."_

"Bye."

He hung up the phone and put his hands over his face while he rested his elbows over his desk.

He called Bones to let her know that Parker would be staying with them for the weekend and the thought delighted her, even after he told her of Parker's recent behavior. She thought that having some time for all of them to spend together would help fix some things. She also told him that if they needed time alone together she would let them have the apartment for Saturday afternoon. They also agreed to be completely honest with him about everything.

Later that afternoon, Booth was going to take the opportunity of having Parker being stuck in his office with him to tell him the truth and talk about his attitude. They were going to nip that in the bud before they left his office.

**Please review and let me know what you think. I would also like to know if there is anything you feel like I'm leaving out of Booth's recovery process. I have many things on my outline to cover, but I really don't want to miss any big issue, so if you think it hasn't been touched on enough feel free to let me know. Also, after this next chapter, which will largely be Parker's weekend with them, there may be a slight time jump. Maybe. It's undecided right now. If that does happen it won't be huge, but if we keep going at the current pace it'll be three years before you read if Booth and Brennan conceived or not, so yeah, this needs to move on a little bit.**

**Until next time, my lovely readers.**

**XOXO,  
CrayonClown  
**


	11. Chapter 11

**I am so sorry it has taken so long. I've written and rewritten this chapter and restructured it and FINALLY I have something to show for it. A monster chapter! I hope it's worth the wait. **

* * *

**Previously...**

"_When I pick him up from school, I'll bring him to you. You said that you're current job is to "sit at your desk and rot away while a green agent does your job", so maybe he could sit with you there until you go can go home."_

"_Yeah, it'd be fine, and I've got enough stuff around here to keep him occupied for a bit. Thanks, Rebecca."_

"_No problem; you know I'm here to talk if you need it, right?"_

"_Yeah, I know. Thanks."_

"_I'll see you later, Seeley."_

"_Bye."_

_He hung up the phone and put his hands over his face while he rested his elbows over his desk. _

_He called Bones to let her know that Parker would be staying with them for the weekend and the thought delighted her, even after he told her of Parker's recent behavior. She thought that having some time for all of them to spend together would help fix some things. She also told him that if they needed time alone together she would let them have the apartment for Saturday afternoon. They also agreed to be completely honest with him about everything._

_Later that afternoon, Booth was going to take the opportunity of having Parker being stuck in his office with him to tell him the truth and talk about his attitude. They were going to nip that in the bud before they left his office._

.

Boot sat in his desk chair and tapped his pen on the paper as he read in silence.

Parker was sitting in a chair opposite of him, he was supposed to be working on his homework, but Booth could feel his son's eyes as the bore into him.

The silence was thick and the normally cheery and talkative boy was obviously unhappy with something. Booth knew he was or he wouldn't have been acting out as he had been for his teachers and his mom.

When Parker had first arrived at his office he only said a brief "hi" before he sat down and started pulling out work to make himself busy so that he wouldn't have to say much. Booth had decided that there was plenty of time to talk that afternoon and he'd just let his son sit there and stew for a bit. Parker knew he was in trouble with his dad. Booth didn't have to express his disappointment verbally, it had been written all over his face when Parker had walked into the room with his mother.

Now, nearly an hour an a half later, Parker sat staring at his father just waiting for the other shoe to drop. He knew it was coming and he couldn't, for the life of him, figure out why his dad hadn't exploded over what he'd said to his teacher, yet. He'd said the 'f' word. There would be fallout from that.

Booth sighed and set his pen down, but he didn't look up yet.

"You _will_ act better than this." Booth's voice was a low growl and it was clear that it was an order, not a request. Booth looked up with his brown eyes giving off a stern displeased attitude. "There is no excuse for your behavior. This is not who you are and we both know it."

The ten-year-old looked down to his pencil as it scribbled lightly on the margin of the paper. "I'm sorry."

Booth's tone softened, "I know, Bub. Look at me." Parker did as requested. "I'm sorry, too. I've… I've been distant and I know that. I've just had to figure some things out. For one, Hannah and I aren't together any more, and I'm not proud of the events that lead up to that. To be honest with you, Parker, my mistakes carry more weight and consequences than a sucky attitude and explicit language, and I know that had I not been going though some of this, then you might not be going through this badass phase right now."

"Did you apologize?"

"To Hannah?" Parker nodded. "Yes, but she isn't even the one I hurt the most in all of this. So it's more serious than an apology can fix. I… I don't know how much I should tell you, but I owe you the truth. In simple terms, I've been throwing myself a pity party ever since I introduced Hannah to you, before that, really, but especially then. You kept talking about Bones and how great she is and asking why she was never my girlfriend. What you don't know is that before I went to Afghanistan, I asked Bones to be my girlfriend and she said no, but like an idiot, I gave up on trying. I figured after six years of working together, if she couldn't see how much I loved her and how badly it tore me apart… well, I had to get away from here for awhile."

"That's why you left? I thought you went to save and help people. Isn't that what you told me?"

"That's what I told myself, too, and it's true, but it isn't the whole truth. Sometimes, half truths might as well be lies."

"So you gave up on Bones, and came back with Hannah."

"Not really; Hannah followed me, but I let her."

"Were you trying to make Bones regret her decision?"

"Now, I'm not going to get into _all_ the details of my love life, Parker, but yeah, I think I wanted Bones to feel how I felt every time she was with someone else and especially how I felt when she turned me down. When you brought up Bones every chance you got when you met Hannah, the guilt really started to set in. It already had before then, too, but you… you really laid it on thick."

"Sorry."

"No, no, no. Don't be sorry for that. Introducing you to Hannah never should have happened because I never should have given up on Bones."

"You're talking like you know something now that you didn't know then?"

"How are you so wise?"

"Hey, I've gotta be sharp to keep up with the guys at the lab, especially Bones."

"Don't I know it, and since you're so wise beyond your years, I'm going to go ahead and fill you in. I was going to tell you all of this tomorrow, but it seems like now would make more sense. There are a few other confessions I need to make first. They are very serious, and you need to know. Do you know what gambling is?"

"What like betting and poker and stuff?"

"Yeah, and do you know what an addiction is?"

"Yeah, mom says I'm addicted to my Wii. I guess that means I play it a lot."

"Okay, addictions are sort of like that. Addiction can start out as seeking pleasure or enjoyment out of an action, such as gambling, or even a substance, such as drugs or alcohol. Well, over time a person can develop a dependency on this behavior or substance as they try to keep seeking pleasure, usually in an effort to fill some other void in their life or to drown out some other unwanted feelings."

"Okay, I think I understand."

"Good; good." Booth took a deep breath and looked down at his desk, but then looked back to his son. Eye contact has always been important to him, and his son seemed to be the same way. "Addiction runs in our family. My dad was an alcoholic and so is my brother, Jared. I—"

"Do you have an addiction, dad?" Parker asked softly, already thinking he knew the answer.

"Yeah, buddy. I do. I have a gambling problem. I have battled it for years, and I've mostly been successful, until recently. Very recently. Remember that pity party I've been throwing myself?"

Parker nodded.

"Well, that was the main event. And while gambling can seem harmless, when someone gets addicted it can be just as damaging as any addiction to drugs and alcohol can be. I've hurt a lot of people. You, and your mom, for starters. If you ever wanted to know why I wasn't always around when you were little, now you know why."

"Is that why whenever I asked about you, mom would change the subject and find some reason why I couldn't call you or see you?"

"Yeah."

Booth looked down at his desk in shame, knowing that this conversation was hurting them both, but at the same time, he was relieved that Parker finally knew why. Booth just hoped that it didn't make Parker see him in a different way.

"I'm sorry, about that, Parker. You should have been thing in my life that changed me, but the addiction was stronger and I let it win. I let it take over the relationship I should have had with you. Then even after I finally got a handle on myself, your mom still fought very hard to protect you from me in case I were to relapse. She didn't want to confuse you with me being gone, being there, and then disappearing again. I don't fault her one bit for protecting you like that, and you shouldn't either. It hurt, but I don't blame her."

"Okay."

"And now, I've hurt Hannah, she didn't know about _any_ of this and I didn't bother to tell her until it was too late. Bones… I've hurt her, too. My boss; he's been a good friend to turn to in the past with my gambling and this time was no different, but I could still see that he took it personally that I'd relapsed. And this time, I've hurt you and your mom again. First, I spent so much time with Hannah and ignored you. Then I ignored you because of the guilt, and again, that isn't your fault, so don't you even think that. Then everything just built up and I cracked. All of that stuff built up and something triggered what they call _the itch_." Booth said using air quotes. "I left work, took my paycheck, gambled it away, and in desperation, I called Bones, because she knew about my history with gambling. Long story short, without getting into all of the hurt and pain, Bones helped me come home, helped me talk to my boss, we talked about… God, we talked about everything."

Booth feared he was talking too much or saying too much, but his son sat there with quiet interest and a keen attention as he listened, and Booth kept talking in order to fix things.

"We talked about what caused my relapse, things like my guilt over giving up on her, and she was honest with me about her own feelings. Here I was, I had come back with Hannah following closely behind, but when Bones came back from Maluku, she was ready to give us a try. I had given up entirely too easy, and I had blown any chance of being together even further out of the water. All of the talking that we did… we accomplished a lot between us. We've established that we want the same things and are on the same path now. First things first. Getting me help for my problem, and trying to fix things, but we've decided to take these steps together."

"Dad, are you trying to tell me that Bones is your girlfriend now?"

"Yeah, but she doesn't like that label, so do say it in front of her," Booth told his son with a wink and a smirk. "I was going to wait until tomorrow to tell you that part, but I realized just a bit ago that there is something else that would confuse you if I didn't just tell you before we left here."

"What is it?"

"We aren't going back to my apartment tonight. I'm staying with Bones while I get my crap together."

"But I didn't bring anything with me because I have stuff at your house."

"We can stop by, later, but from here, I have to go straight home to Bones', where she'll no doubt be waiting with a stop watch to see how long it takes me."

"You mean kinda like how when I go down the street to Jimmy Jenkins' house and I have to be home at a certain time?"

"Yeah, like that, and speaking of… It's time to pack everything up. Make sure you get all of your stuff put into your bag, 'kay, Bud? I need to run down the hall and make copies of this thing right here for Doctor Sweets to look at. I'll be right back."

Parker gathered his things. He smiled to himself as he realized his dad was on his way back to being himself. This was the man he looked up to so much.

"Wow, that was fast," Parker commented when his father walked back in with a shuffle to his step.

"Yeah. I didn't have to take it all the way down to Sweets' office. He was already in the copy room. Ready to go?"

Parker nodded, "Yep."

"We can get your stuff later. We'll probably all eat at the Diner tonight. We can swing by and get it then."

"So, we're going to Bones' house?" Parker asked his father, not because he was in need of clarification, but mostly because he wanted to be sure that it was actually happening and he wasn't just dreaming or hearing what he wanted to hear.

"Sure are, Pal."

"Awesome."

.

Booth left Parker in the living room and walked through to the kitchen to find Bones. When he got there he frowned as he realized that she was not there. He went back through the living room and down the hallway and into her room. He heard the water running in the bathroom and he opened the door a crack and stuck his head in.

"Bones, we're here."

He heard a clatter in the shower as she dropped her bottle of body wash in surprise.

"Booth!"

"Is everything okay in there?"

"You scared me. I didn't hear you come in."

"Sorry. I just wanted to let you know, I'm home. Parker is in the living room. I talked to him while we were in my office, both about his behavior and mine. I also thought that it would be best to tell him about us being together. I didn't want him to be confused about me staying here. You don't mind do you?"

"No, it's understandable. You were going to tell him tomorrow anyway, correct?"

"Yes."

"How did he take it?"

"It gave him a lot to think about, that's for sure. He's fine with us being together, but I think he's still digesting the rest of it."

"That's understandable. Would you still like to spend the day alone with him tomorrow? I can go to the lab and get—"

"No, we can all spend it together. I was just going to spend the time alone with him to talk things out, but we've gotten a good chunk of that out of the way. I need him to get used to us being together. We should spend tomorrow together; all of us."

"Okay. If you change your mind, just tell me."

"I'm not going to change my mind. Hey, Bones?"

"What?" She shut the water off and reached out trying to grab a towel that was further away than she could reach.

Booth walked over and moved it closer for her. She grabbed it and he caught her hand before it retreated back beyond the shower door. He laid a charming kiss on the back of her hand before releasing it.

"How would you feel about going to the Diner for dinner?"

"Sounds great. I was going to make pizza for us tonight, but I can do that tomorrow."

"That's a wonderful idea. We'll need to swing by my place sometime tonight to grab some stuff for Parker. Rebecca brought him over straight after school and since it was a last minute thing…"

"Yeah, sure. I'll be ready in twenty minutes."

"Okay."

He gave her a sweet peck on the lips and headed out to the living room.

"Where's Bones? Were you K-I-S-S-I-N-G?"

"Knock it off, Bub. She was in the shower; she'll be ready to go here shortly. You want to get some of your homework finished while we wait?"

"Yeah, can you help me though?"

Booth laughed, "That depends on what kind of homework, and why didn't you get this done while in ISS?"

"Because, that was just a bunch of extra busywork. This," he held up the large stack of papers, "is the three days of homework that we got during my time in ISS, but I don't know how to do any of it because I obviously wasn't in class. If you ask me, their punishment system is whack, dad. How's a kid supposed to learn like that?"

Booth took the pile of folders from Parker as held them out.

Booth thought to himself as he looked over the homework.

_English. Underline the prepositions, underline the prepositional phrases, use the provided prepositions in a sentence, and use the provided prepositional phrases in a sentence… easy. Spelling words… easy. Vocabulary words… easy._

_Math. Solve for 'x', simple algebra… easy. As long as I don't have to help him solve for the entire alphabet, I should be able to help._

_Social Studies. Boring. Story and worksheet about ancient pharaohs; read and answer multiple choice questions… easy._

Booth handed the pharaoh papers over to Parker figuring he could do that while Booth looked over the rest. "Here, do this one. All you have to do is read this passage and then answer the questions. You'll get the boring one out of the way quickly."

Parker got to work as he looked over the rest of the papers.

_Science. He's probably better off asking for help from Bones on this. Simple plant vs animal cell worksheet, label the parts of the cell using the word bank: nucleus, nucleolus cytoplasm, cell membrane, ribosome, mitochondria, golgi, lysosomes, smooth and rough endoplasmic reticulum, cytoplasm, vacuole, chloroplast… okay, some of those I am familiar with. Okay, last page… Crap a project. Choose either between the plant cell and the animal cell and make a physical representation of the cell and all of its parts. Hand drawn pictures will not be acceptable. You know what; I'll just leave the science crap to Bones._

Brennan yelled from the bedroom, "Sorry, it's taking so long. I'll be out in a minute."

"No rush, Bones. We aren't late for anything."

.

"Bones! Do you want to try it?"

Booth looked over to his girlfriend's scrunched up face.

"Bub, you gotta stop doing crap like that. You're grossing Bones out, and that's hard to do."

"It wasn't gross; all I did was dip my French fry in my chocolate milkshake and then ate it."

"I'm not grossed out by it, but it is weird, Parker. Maybe you should just stick to ketchup."

"Okay," the boy agreed. "It does taste better with ketchup anyway. I just thought I would try it. I dared this other kid at school to do it once, and he said it wasn't bad."

"Are all boys this weird, Booth, or just yours?"

Booth laughed at her candor and enjoyed the lightness of the moment in contrast to the way his life had been lately.

"What, Russ wasn't weird?"

"I guess, but he was almost five years older than me; we didn't really do much together when he got to cool to be seen with his morbid weird little sister."

"Morbid?"

"You went to my high school reunion and you know about the staging my own death thing."

"You staged your own death? That is sooo cool!" Parker said in an admiration that scared Booth just a little.

"No, Parker, not cool! Bones! He thinks that's cool. If he… oh God, if he does that, Rebecca really will kill me."

If it helps, "I would be able to solve your murder," Brennan said seriously.

"Relax, I just said it was cool." Parker tried to defuse the awkward silence that had fallen over them after Brennan's comment. "I didn't say I planned to do it. Although…"

"No!"

"Let me finish, dad! You will think it's funny; I promise."

"Fine." Booth motioned for his son to continue.

"Bones, do you have anything really gross that I can borrow to play a prank on this girl that… gets on my nerves?"

"NO! That's not funny. Bones, say no!" Booth looked back over to his son on the other side of the table. "You've been in enough trouble at school; don't you think? If there is a girl bothering you, just tell her, nicely, to just… go away."

"Wait, Booth." Brennan put a hand on his knee under the table. Brennan pulled some cash out of her wallet. "Here, Parker. Go up to the counter pay our bill and get us one of their large pies. We'll take it home with us."

"Booth," she lowered her voice as Parker left the table, "I don't think the girl gets on his nerves. I think he _likes_ her. He doesn't want her to just _go away._"

"Oh, so you can pick up on things like that now, can you?"

"Booth, I'm being serious. Did you hear the pause before he said that she gets on his nerves, and he didn't look you directly in the eyes as he had been when he was talking. You do that same thing when you aren't being completely honest."

"Okay, so he likes a girl. He's gonna turn eleven on his next birthday, that was bound to happen someday soon. But, he doesn't need to gross her out, scare her, or play pranks on her to let her know that he likes her. Booth men are much smoother than that."

"Are they?" Brennan questioned, and it was clear by her tone that she thought that he wasn't as smooth as he thought he was.

"Okay, maybe not, I mean, I remember how Jared treated you…" Brennan's glare caught his breath as he threw his brother under the bus, "Okay, fine. Me either. I am not as suave in the letting women know I like them department as I was in high school."

"You've been doing better lately," Brennan said with a Cheshire grin, "but you know what he has going for him?"

"No, what?"

"He's cuter than you."

Booth opened his mouth in surprise and his eyes twinkled at her as she raised her eyebrows in a dare to refute her statement, knowing that he would never do it.

"Okay, so he's cute. I'll talk to him about properly showing a girl he likes her and that he's interested," then Booth quickly followed that with, "but not _too_ interested. I don't need any fathers after my kid yet."

A thought that just occurred to her after he said that amused her and she just had to know, "Did you have fathers after you?"

"Oh, yeah. Big time."

They shared a laugh as Parker came back to the table with the big container of pie in his hands.

Booth and Brennan stood, and he took the container from Parker, "I'll get this, you go on ahead. Be a gentleman and get the door for Bones."

.

After swinging by his place to get a bunch of Parker's stuff for him, they headed back to Brennan's apartment with way more than they knew they would need for this weekend. Brennan had made a point that since Booth was going to be staying there for a while that it would make sense for Parker to have whatever he wanted there as well since she didn't have much to keep him entertained there.

And as Brennan sat there and helped Parker label the cells on his science worksheets, the domesticity of their current situation hit her, hard, but not unpleasantly.

She rather enjoyed this, and she reveled in the fact that this would be her reality more and more in her relationship with Booth. They were a packaged deal, Booth and his son. She knew this, but she hadn't really given it much thought as to what that meant for her. Not only was she gaining Booth as a spouse, she was gaining a child which put her in a motherhood role, whether she ended up being pregnant or not.

She sighed as the thought of the possibility washed over her, and a warmth filled her heart that she hadn't felt since before her parents left. Baby, or no baby, she was starting a family of her own with Booth and his son.

She looked over to the couch, where Booth had fallen asleep after putting himself in a pie-induced coma.

She made sure Parker could handle his homework for a while and then she walked over and lifted Booth's feet and settled into the couch, placing his feet across her legs.

She worked the damaged delicate bones and tendons in his left foot with her skilled touch before moving to the right foot.

"You don't have to do that, Bones," he mumbled sleepily.

"No, but I want to. I could tell by the way you were walking earlier that they were especially problematic for you today. It's the weather, isn't it?"

"Yes, cold always makes my feet hurt."

She silently acknowledged the admission with a nod.

"So, what should we do tomorrow?" Brennan asked Booth, anxious to know how they were going to spend their time with Parker.

"I haven't really thought much about what we were going to do. Saturdays, for us, are usually lazy. We sleep late, then make breakfast and watch cartoons in the clothes we woke up in. We check to see if there is a game or something on or we go out to the park to play ball. This time though, he's in pretty big trouble for his behavior, which means no Saturday morning cartoons and I don't want to undermine the fact that he is in trouble by going and doing a bunch of stuff, but at the same time I want him to enjoy himself here, because I know I've been less than a perfect dad lately."

"Well, I remember from when Russ and I were kids, being grounded only applied to things we wanted to do. Things like family time or events we did as a family didn't count in the grounding. So we could go have fun as a family, but he could still be grounded from the little things like his games, the computer, TV, and stuff like that. Right?"

"I love the way you think, Bones. Hmm, I think I will let you choose what we do tomorrow."

"Me? What if he doesn't like it? I don't know what little boys like to do, Booth!"

"Do you know what I like to do?"

"Yes. Sports, shooting things, going to the movies, spending time out at the park…"

"Okay, that's good for a start, but just take away the shooting things part. Unless you take us to do laser tag, paintballing, or Nerf wars. It'll be fine, Bones. Don't worry about it so much."

"Do you think the crafts store is still open?" She asked Booth.

"I think they're open until nine; why?"

"Because, I think it might be a good idea to give Parker a break from his work for the night. We can go pick up things he will need for his project and we can work on it in the morning."

"That sounds like a great idea, Bones. You'll have to hurry though," he said, looking at his watch. "You only have an hour before they close."

.

Their Saturday morning was lazy, just as predicted.

Brennan had been worried about what Parker would think about her and Booth sharing her bed, but Booth had assured her that Parker understands how relationships work and that it wouldn't be a problem.

Booth made pancakes for everyone at nearly noon as Brennan and Parker worked on getting the last of his homework done so that he could enjoy his weekend.

Brennan had helped him come up with a quick plan on how to approach the project. After he picked out which cell he wanted to do, they had wandered the store, the previous night, trying to find things that looked useful in representing the things pictured in the diagram of the cell.

Once they had gotten started on it, the whole thing took about half an hour to assemble and another fifteen minutes to attach the labels.

Parker took it from the nine-foot concrete slab in Brennan's dining room and took it to show his dad.

"Be careful with it, Parker. The glue isn't completely dry yet," Brennan warned him.

"I will, Bones. Hey, dad! Look at what I made."

"Wow. Did you thank Bones for helping you?"

"Yep."

"That's really great, Parker. Much better than it would have been if I helped you. And it would have taken ten times longer to get done, too."

"That's what Bones said."

"It would have been sloppy, too," Bones teased as she entered the room.

"I love you, too, Bones," Booth said in a sappy voice.

.

"Bones! That is not a word!" Booth huffed as he pointed at the Scrabble board.

"It is, too. Go get a dictionary, Booth."

"Fine, I will."

He got up from the floor and trotted smugly to her office and pulled out her dictionary.

When he returned he spied his two favorite people leaning over Parker's letters and whispering to each other as Brennan pointed some things out on the board to the boy and then indicated something to his letters.

"What is this?" Booth asked incredulously.

"Well, is it a word, smarty trousers?" Brennan asked him.

Not even bothering to correct her, Booth, asked again, "What are you doing? That is cheating! You can't help him!"

"Booth, he is ten. He needs help to be able to compete on an equal level with adults."

"Bones, the only way it would be _remotely_ equal is if _I_ helped him. And even then, it still wouldn't be equal because you're the smartest one here!"

"Which is why it makes the most sense that I be the one to help him. It is my intellectual _obligation_ to enrich his vocabulary to its fullest potential given this opportunity."

"Now, it's like I'm competing against two Temperance Brennans, and that is just not even close to fair."

"Life is not fair, Seeley, or we wouldn't go through the things we've been through that have brought us here."

Booth thought for a moment and nodded silently as he sat down and moved his tiles around. She was right, but Booth was still in a foul mood. Whether she meant to or not, it felt like she had ganged up with Parker against him.

"Besides, I wasn't giving him words or telling him what to do. I gave him some advice and it's his choice on how to take it."

Booth finally picked up the dictionary he'd fetched and looked up the word he disputed. Then shut it quickly and set it aside.

"So, is it a word?"

"Is the Pope Catholic?" Seeing confusion on her face, Booth rolled his eyes, "Why did you even ask me that question, if you knew the answer was yes, Bones. To rub it in?"

There was a long silence.

Booth was being mean, and he knew it. Brennan got a thick feeling in her throat and tears threatened her eyes before answering.

"No, I just didn't want you to doubt me or any reason to doubt me in the future. I'm sorry."

Before he could comfort her and tell her he was sorry for being such a sore loser, they heard the door to the guest room slam shut, rattling things on shelves and on the walls.

"No, no, no. Baby, I'm sorry. I don't mean to be such a dick. I was just teasing at first, and then you were helping Parker, which is great, but it's still cheating. Then, the way you asked about it being a word. I thought you were… I should have known better; you aren't like that. I'm so sorry, Bones."

"I know. I forgive you. I should have realized that by the inflection in my tone you would have taken it the wrong way."

"No, I should have remembered that you are _you_ and that inflections and shit like that isn't your strong suit. I—I need to go talk to Parker."

"Yes, of course. I understand."

"We're okay?"

"Yes."

"You're sure?"

"Yes, Booth. Go."

Booth kissed his girlfriend on the lips and lingered for a few seconds as he dropped his forehead to hers. "I love you, Temperance."

She looked at him in a way that let him know she felt the same way, but couldn't voice it at the moment. He placed one more kiss, on her forehead this time, and then stood to go to the guest room.

Booth knocked on the door, "Can I come in?"

"You probably would even if I said no anyway."

Booth opened the door and walked in, shutting it behind him. "You're probably right."

"You made Bones cry, for no reason. Why were you being a jerk, dad?"

"I can't say for sure. I've been messed up for a while, Parker. I'm trying to get help for it."

"I thought your problem was gambling and stuff."

"It is, but that isn't my only problem. Remember the pity party that I was telling you about. This is just another part of it. I have a tendency to throw things in people's faces to make them feel how I feel. Kind of like I threw Hannah in Bones' face. It wasn't nice, but I did it anyway. Bones was just making sure that I didn't doubt her and that I knew she wouldn't cheat on purpose, and I threw it in her face because I thought that's what she was doing to me. It was cruel and hurtful."

"Bones isn't like that, dad."

"I know, buddy. I've already talked to her. We're fine. Okay?"

"Okay. How much longer until you're better?"

"I don't have an answer for that, either. It could be a while. Should we come up with a code word for when you think I'm being a jackass? That way I'll know to cut it out before it gets out of hand?"

"Can I just say 'stop being a jackass'?"

"Uh, let me think about that one for a minute…no."

"Aw, c'mon."

"Don't 'aw c'mon' me, Parks. You don't even have armpit hair yet."

"Almost. Mom told me I stunk the other day and that I had to start using deodorant. That means I'm getting closer, right?"

"I guess, but that won't give your free reign to curse like a sailor or use the 'f' word with anyone. Got it?"

"Got it. Okay, code word… what should we pick?" The boy looked thoughtful as he tapped his finger at the corner of his mouth.

"It's gotta be something that we don't use often so that I can recognize it for what it is immediately."

"How about I just say 'donkey'? It's the nicer term for a jac—"

"Parker," Booth warned. "We'll use 'donkey'. Do you think we can go back out and finish our game?"

"Sure. Can you do it without making anyone cry?" Parker asked his dad seriously.

"Donkey."

"Dad! That's for me to use if _you_ start acting like a jackass! We never said anything about using it on anyone but you."

"Parker! Stop saying that! And you were being a jackass. That comment was unnecessary. I was just demonstrating how to use the word since you gave me such an open opportunity." Booth smiled.

"Let's go, dad. Maybe I can use some of my enriched vocabulary to help you with _your_ game."

* * *

**Please, don't hate me for Booth being mean to Bones, but sometimes even on the show, they are just a little bit mean to each other, and the Booth in this story has a lot to work through. His anger is one of those issues. Don't worry, though. I'm not going to let him just jerk her emotions around. Brennan wouldn't put up with that anyway.**

**XOXO,  
CrayonClown  
**


	12. Chapter 12

**Yes, I know that it's been since June since this has had an update. I apologize profusely for that. A lot has happened since the last update. A WHOLE LOT. You probably already knew this if you follow me on twitter or tumblr. My life is completely crazy right now. I'm not going to let such a huge unintentional hiatus happen again and I hope you're still with me, here.**

**This chapter will be from Parker's POV, which has really kicked my ass. BIG TIME. I cannot tell you how many times I've written and then started over, then deleted it again, then left it alone for awhile and ended up having to reread my own writing just to continue. I had the HARDEST time finding Parker's voice in this. I'm not a 10 year old boy. I don't have a 10 year old boy, nor do I really know anyone with a 10 year old boy. Part of the problem is that the Parker we see on the show is so idealized and we see him so little that... I don't know, this one was not easy to write. I almost feel like I had a better grasp on the chapter from Hannah's POV, which scares me a little. **

**Anyway, without further delay...**

* * *

We just got back from swimming and we had pizza while we were at the pool. We ate a lot and swam until it got dark outside, and Bones yelled at dad for jumping in the pool too soon after eating half a large pizza.

I can't really sleep right now. I'm too excited for what this might all mean for us. I think we're finally going to be a family.

I love coming to Bones' house. We always do the coolest stuff. Dad says that he's going to live here for a little while.

That's cool. Bones can take care of him and help him get better.

I'm so glad my dad and Bones are finally together. It's been a long time coming, that's for sure. I would have thought they would have gotten together a long time ago. And after _you know who_ came back with him, I never thought that my dad and Bones would never get to be with each other.

He always talked about her, even before I met her. He would tell me that he wished I could meet her and that someday he hoped I would get to. From the moment I met her when I was four, I knew she was someone special to my dad.

Besides me, I think the best thing that's ever happened to my dad is meeting Bones.

I think _everyone_ else knew they were supposed to be together before they knew. Even I knew. Mom, too.

If only my dad could have seen the way he looked at her, and if only Bones could have seen the way she looked at him.

I had a really interesting talk with dad yesterday about addiction in our family. I guess I knew about addiction, but I didn't know that it had affected so many people I know. Mom had also mentioned some things in passing that I had never really thought much of before now.

I think maybe it's a good thing that I know about it all now—or some of it, anyway. I know there is no way he told me everything. I'm not sure I would want to know everything. I'm sure that this also has something to do with going back into the army. This was about more than just dad's gambling trip. He hasn't been the same since coming home from the war. He's been edgier when I did get to see him, and he made excuses to not see me until he introduced me to Hannah. Even if he hadn't brought _her_ along with him, I don't think he would be the same either. I think that maybe he was trying to protect me from seeing what being _over there_ did to him. I think I understand that now, after seeing him nearly break down while talking to me at his office.

It scares me—knowing about the addictions in my family—though. Is that how I am going to be? What kind of addiction will I get if I do? Can I stop it? Or is it my destiny? Fate, as dad would call it. Is that my fate? To end up broken and in jeopardy of losing the things I've worked hard to have in my life?

I kicked my covers off of my legs and feet and just laid there in the bed that Bones is letting me use tonight. I can't sleep. Everything is going too fast through my mind. Honestly, it's beginning to make me feel a little sick to my stomach.

I got up to walk out to the kitchen to get a glass of water, thinking that maybe it would help.

Before I got to the door, I saw a little bit of light peeking out from the below the door.

Is someone awake? The thought of someone being out there—and not knowing whether it's Bones or dad—almost stops me from going out there. I just don't really want to be asked why I'm still up or if something is bothering me. I don't really want to talk right now.

But I _really_ need that water.

I opened the door as quietly as I could manage. Bones' apartment is apparently really old and everything creaks. I cringed as the door hinges moaned loudly, announcing my exit to whoever was awake.

Maybe dad can put some of that greasy stuff on the hinges while he's staying here.

I slipped passed the dark bathroom, but then back tracked after I realized that I could probably stand to go to the bathroom.

Then I walked out into the open space of Bones' living room. The dim lamp in the corner near her couch was on and I could see Bones sitting on the couch staring at a box. She didn't even seem to notice me walk by to get a glass of water.

When I came back into the living room from the kitchen, I stopped in front of her, "Bones?"

She jumped when she realized that she wasn't alone and that she heard my voice call her name. She put the box back inside a paper bag and shoved it beside her rather quickly.

"Parker, you startled me," she brought her hand to her chest almost as if she wanted to place her hand directly on her heart to calm it down.

"Sorry. Why are you just sitting there?" I asked her. I wanted to ask what was in the box, but I didn't. Clearly, that wasn't something she wanted to share if she was sitting here in the middle of the night, alone, as she stared at it and then trying to hide it from me in the bag.

"I just have a lot on my mind; that's all. What about you? I guess you're having troubles sleeping, too?"

"Maybe a little," I admitted to her. I set my glass on a coaster on her coffee table and then sat next to her when she motioned me over to sit by her.

She put her arm around me, and pulled me into her side for a strong hug.

How is it that she—a woman who always claims to be horrible with kids—always seems to know exactly what I need?

Hugs from Bones are almost as good as hugs from mom.

Perhaps, Bones needed a hug as much as I did.

She held onto me for a little while before she loosened her grip around my shoulders.

"Is there anything you want to talk about?" She asked me.

"No," I told her.

She got that look in her eye, the one that mom usually had when she could tell I wasn't being truthful.

_Not good with kids, my a—butt._

"You sure?" She asked.

"No," I replied with a humorless laugh. "Dad's going through a lot, huh?"

"He is."

"And you're helping him get better?"

"I'm going to try. The fact that he has both of us to support him is a big motivator for him, but a lot of it, he has to do on his own. I—we can't be his metaphorical crutches forever. He needs to become self-reliant and take responsibility for his own day-to-day actions. The sooner the better."

"What does that mean?"

"It means that even though we are here to help, your father needs to be able to do things without me stepping in to tell him to check in with me after work or anytime he leaves. He needs to be able to manage his own money, without me helping. I can't be there for every decision he needs to make between right and wrong, and he doesn't need to develop a habit of depending on me to do so."

"You know a lot about this. I'm glad you seem to know what to do, Bones." I leaned forward to pick up my glass from the coffee table and took a sip.

"I still feel like I don't; though, I have done some research on addiction and I've gotten a lot of information from Sam Cullen and his wife," she admitted to me.

"My dad's boss?"

She nodded. "It's important. I needed to know what my role is in his recovery. I've never been through this before and it really helped to get help from the people who were previously instrumental in helping Booth with his addiction."

"Is this why you can't sleep either?"

"No, Parker. It isn't. I know your dad will be fine; I know him. I know how strong-willed he is. I'm worried about… other things." She told me vaguely.

I knew she did that on purpose. She didn't want to tell me or she wasn't ready to talk about it. Or maybe it was something that was just really none of my business. I don't know… adults are like that a lot—you know, secretive.

"It's late, and you and you're father have church in the morning," Bones stood and then held her hand out to pull me to my feet.

"Are you sure? Dad didn't say anything about going tomorrow."

I picked my glass back up and followed her over to her office. She reached down and unlocked the bottom drawer of her desk and placed her paper sack in the drawer and locked it back up.

"He hasn't taken you with him in a while; has he?"

We padded quietly to the guest room and didn't talk as we were in the hallway, so close to my dad as he slept in the other room.

"No," I answered as Bones shut the door slightly behind her and I crawled into bed.

"Well, I don't think he's even been taking himself, but tomorrow, he's getting up and going to church if I have to drag him there myself."

"I thought you—aren't you an Amethyst?"

She sat on the edge of the bed.

"Atheist," she corrected me, "An amethyst is a violet or purplish type of quartz and is often used as the birthstone for…"

"February. I know. It's your birthstone; right, Bones? I think I heard dad say your birthday is in February."

She looked at me in the darkened room and I could see her head do that tilty thing that it does when she's working something in her head.

"It is, but if you knew you were saying it wrong, why'd you… Oh. You were just… You are too much like your father sometimes, Parker."

"Mom tells me that a lot. Sometimes, I'm not sure if she means that in a good way."

"Trust me, I meant that as a good thing."

"Bones, you are an Atheist, right?"

"Yes."

"You don't believe in God, but you'd still go to church to help my dad?"

"Yes. Your father is a man of faith. If that's been shaken, then I'm going to help him get that back, too. His faith and his beliefs have always been important to him. It's important to me that he gets all of that back."

"I'm glad we're here, Bones, and I'm glad that you're helping dad."

"I'm very glad, too. I've never gotten to spend this much quality time with you before. It's nice. And you know that if you ever just want time alone with just your dad… you just have to say something."

"Nah, I like it when we're all together. Dad is much happier."

"He definitely is. Alright," she said standing up, "it's time to get some rest, or at least try to. Okay?"

"Alright."

"Goodnight, Parker," she said as she hugged me.

When she pulled away, I could tell that we was contemplating something, but was unsure of herself. I kissed her cheek as she pulled away.

"Goodnight, Bones."

Then with a small smile she made a decision and leaned back down to kiss my forehead.

Hugs and Kisses from Bones… almost as good as mom's.

* * *

**Again, sincere apologies for the 3 month hiatus. Feel free to send all kinds of hate for that, and definitely feel free to nag me when you think it's been too long.  
**

**I really do hope you're still here. :)**

**XOXO,  
CrayonClown**


	13. Chapter 13

**Generally, I pride myself as having clean chapters with little mistakes and I try to keep the continuity throughout, but as I was fixing a few errors in some previous chapters, I noticed a huge flaw. In chapter 2 Booth had never showed up and picked up evidence from Charlie, but in chapter 9 I actually wrote him as having taken off with that evidence. Chapter 9 has been fixed to reflect what I originally wrote in chapter 2. A HUGE thank you to ttuzz for brainstorming and bringing up some ways to help me fix that error and still keep Booth's punishments the same so as to not affect the story too much.**

* * *

I don't know how I expected to be woken up, but the nearly militaristic way Bones woke me up this morning was definitely not what I had in mind. Not that I wasn't used to that way of life, but I was retired from the Army. Done. Finito.

Is it too much to ask for to get two more hours of sleep?

However, I would have been up for something a little more playful or lazy and loving, had that been the case.

Bones nearly yelling at me to get up and get showered after an alarm—that should have been turned off, by the way—sounded was just… wrong.

"Booth, get up and go shower," she tapped my cheeks from both sides a little too roughly for my liking. "I've already had mine. I'm going to wake up Parker, you need to be out of the shower by time I get Parker awake so that he can shower, too, or we'll be late. Get up, let's go," she commanded again when I was apparently not moving fast enough for her. She kept hounding me to hurry up as I walked toward the dresser—with my eyes still mostly closed—to pull out some fresh boxers for the day and an undershirt.

"Jesus Christ, Bones. What time is it?"

"Seven."

"What? Why are we up so early? Do we have a case?" I asked, obviously forgetting that even if there was a case, it would be hers and not mine because of my punishments at work. "I didn't hear a phone ring.

"We're going to church."

I think it took me a minute to realize what she'd just said, and I was almost through the door of the bathroom in her master suite before I processed what she said.

"No," I told her firmly as I tossed my clothes onto the end of the bed when I came back into the room and then tried to climb back in.

"Booth, get your ass out of bed. We are going to church. I've called Father Mitch, and he is expecting you to be there today. He would very much like the chance to talk to you today, Booth."

"Bones, I'm _not_ going."

"Yes, you are. Parker wants to go to church with his father. I could take him, but it won't be the same to him if you do not go. You owe this to him, yourself, and to me."

"To you? You don't even—you're an Atheist, Bones. Why would this matter to you?"

"Because, it matters to _you_. Booth, your faith is one of the things that defines who you are. I'm helping you to get that back."

She ripped the covers off of me and the bed.

"Get up and go shower, Booth. This is non-negotiable. Even if you think you can't do this for yourself yet, do this for Parker."

I'll be damned if I was just going to lay there naked while she yelled at me and made me feel guilty and about two feet tall by bringing Parker into it. I got up and grabbed my clothes before heading back toward the bathroom to turn the water on and get in.

As I showered, the more I cooled off about being woke up to go somewhere I didn't want to go. Maybe Bones was right. This would be a good thing for me. Trying to get back who I was before means doing the things I used to do, believing in the things I used to believe and making amends for the things I've done by repairing my relationship with my Priest and church family and more importantly God.

And I'd have to go to confession, where there would be no doubt that there was not enough time in the day to confess my sins and indiscretions.

And I can't believe Bones called Father Mitch! The last time they were in the same room, Bones managed to—well, she was Bones, and needless to say, I was afraid to stand anywhere near her for fear of being stricken down with lightning for just being too close for the things she'd said to a son of God, and in His house no less.

After stepping out of the shower and drying myself off, I dressed in my boxers, undershirt, and a pair of socks before heading out to the kitchen for some coffee.

On my way in there, I stepped into Bones' office with her to show her that I was showered and clean; she was just closing her email and stood to make her way over to me.

She wrapped her arms and herself around me and rested her head on my chest.

"You smell nice," she told me. She nuzzled my neck and chin with her face.

"Bones, I'm not sure I'm ready to go to church yet. There are a lot of people that I'm not ready to see and talk to, yet; Father Mitch, being one of them. Of all the people, he's the person I'm the least ready to talk to."

"I understand, Booth, but I think it will be harder if you wait. And Father Mitch has given me the meeting times for the group that meets about gambling. He said that you used to attend and went on occasion if you needed to, but he mentioned that you haven't been since before the gravedigger's trial. I think you should go."

Of course Father Mitch would give her the meeting times. Great.

I didn't say anything. Of course she was right, though. I do _need_ to go.

But that did _not_ mean the same thing as wanting to go. I did not _want_ to go.

I looked down at her; really looked at her and noticed that she looked so dog tired. She looked run down.

In the past, even when we'd get called for a case in the middle of the night, she looked radiant and awake.

But right now, Bones looked… she was still beautiful, of course, but the radiance wasn't there. Her whole face looked dull and stressed.

"Bones, are you okay?"

A look crossed her face, and I knew instantly.

Not okay.

"Don't tell me you're fine," I told her quickly and pulled her back into me and held her close. "Why do you look so…" Now how was I going to put it so as not to offend her?

"Tired?" she finished for me before I had a chance to stick my foot in my mouth. "I'm very tired, Booth."

"Any reason why?"

We were still in her office, and it confused me a little when she shut the door with us still in there.

"What's going on?" I asked her again.

"I couldn't sleep last night," she walked back over to her chair and sat down before pulling out a key to unlock her bottom drawer. "I got restless thinking about everything and thinking about… the possibility of…" she trailed off, and I don't think I was completely awake because I did not understand where she was taking the conversation until she pulled out a paper bag with a box inside. "I went out and bought this last night. It's too early to tell, but I just want to be prepared and have it on hand when it is time."

"Oh." I didn't know what to say. I'm glad she told me. I'm glad she is sharing this with me and not shutting me out as I know she would have in the past. As glad as I was that she was opening up to me, I still didn't know what to say about it.

She can say what she wants about understanding that I'm in such a place that it's not the right time for me to have children, but I know she wants this. I know her, and she's a terrible liar. She wants this so bad.

Which makes it even harder for me to know what to say here.

"I was just thinking too much last night, and I needed something to do to keep from worrying myself so much that it was going to make me sick. I went to the drugstore on the corner and I purchased the test. Then when I came home, I just stared at it for a bit, until…" she trailed off again, seeming as if she was not sure if she should share this with me.

"…Until…" I prompted her.

"Parker came out here for a glass of water." She told me.

"Did he see the test?"

"I don't think so. It was dark and I hid it in the bag before he got close enough to read the box."

"What was he doing awake?"

"He couldn't sleep either."

"Did you talk to him? What did he say?"

"If he wants to talk to you about it, he will. I'm not going to say anything that he may not be ready to talk to you about. Sorry, Booth."

I was about to tell her that it was okay and that I understood when the subject of our conversation walked by the room. The door was still closed, but we could hear his fast heavy footsteps as he jogged through the hall and into the living area.

"Dad! Bones!" We heard him call. "Jeez, where is everyone?"

I looked to Bones, questioning if she was okay, and she nodded before I opened the door, "Right here, buddy," I said as we left Bones' office.

He was already dressed and ready to go. I looked at my watch and noticed we were going to be cutting it very close to make it on time.

Parker frowned at me. Bones was already dressed so my lack of appropriate church attire was very obvious.

"Dad! Why aren't you dressed? You are going, right? Because I gotta tell you dad, if you don't go, then I'll have Bones take me to church and then I'll go straight home instead of coming back here."

I was still sort of on the fence about going to church. I had mostly decided that Bones was right and that I needed to go, but Parker's ultimatum really sealed the deal.

I was going to church.

Instead of sticking around long enough for me to answer him, I really needed to get dressed and Parker had already made his way to the kitchen.

I looked to Bones, "Talk to him for me tell him that I'm going while I go _continue_ to get dressed?" She nodded and I started to walk back toward her bedroom. "Please pour me some coffee in my travel thermos. I'll have to drink it on the way."

"Two sugars?"

"Always."

.

The car ride to church was not exactly comfortable.

First, Bones commandeered my keys and informed me that she was driving. Not only that, but that we were not taking the SUV. No she wanted to take her Mercedes, and well, after Parker heard that… there was no chance of taking the SUV without upsetting him.

No don't get me wrong. I love Bones' little badass car, but I'd rather drive it rather than sit in the passenger seat looking like I've got a sugar momma.

Parker was in the small backseat playing his Nintendo DS without his headphones and the noises from the game were about to make me blow up. Every time he got a coin or something useful in his game, the sound was entirely too close to the sound of a slot machine or one of those poker machines that litter the floor of casinos.

I sat there with my eyes closed, trying to shut out the noises from the game.

When he got to the end of the level, the countdown of his total points for the level sounded like a slot machine cashing out.

"Parker!" I yelled. "Turn the volume down on the game or turn it off."

Bones looked sideways at me with wide, startled eyes. She spoke quietly, "You're shaking."

I gave her a sideways look and I knew that she knew what was on my mind.

"Parker, your father told you to put the game away," she spoke up, when she still heard the noises of the game. We're almost there anyway."

"Thanks, Bones." I whispered back to her, even though I still felt as if I was having a panic attack and I could barely breathe.

She placed her hand on my leg to stop it from shaking. I reached for my travel mug.

"Don't drink any more of your coffee, Booth. You're jittery enough. There's water in my bag."

If Parker noticed any of the tension in the front seat, he didn't say anything.

.

As we sat through the service, Bones was more respectful and mindful than I'd ever seen her toward my religion and the rituals and even during the sermon. She genuinely seemed interested in everything that was being said.

I, on the other hand, seemed to be paying attention to everything except what was being said.

Just like it was at the Hoover, I felt like everyone was starting at me. Most of these people, I hadn't seen since before I left for Afghanistan, and most of these people didn't know that I had come back early.

Or so I thought.

There were a select few who did know. That meant that they knew that I hadn't been attending church. If there is anyone more gossipy than Angela Montenegro, it's the little old ladies that sit around and talk before and after church.

Some of the looks told me they definitely knew that I'd been lackadaisical in my faith. Some were looks of pity, some of disgust, some of curiosity, some of just plain nosiness, some of disdain, some of—well, let's just say that I've never really been the posterboy for a good Catholic, as foretold by my premarital sex, child out of wedlock—and possibly another one and with a different woman, and the various impure thoughts/fantasies/dreams over the years about Bones.

It's safe to say I received several scowls over my personal life choices long before today.

They just felt worse today than they ever have.

We hung around after mass to speak with Father Mitch. He had several orders of business to take care of following the service and a few people to talk to first, but he assured us that he would be free to us as soon as he was able to catch a break.

That alone told me just how big of a deal this meeting was. I can just see it now. This wasn't just a "Welcome back Seeley" type of thing. This was a serious "get your shit together or God will smite you" kind of thing.

I really wanted to leave.

Parker was relaxing a few pews back playing his DS again, and thankfully Bones had given him her headphones from her purse.

Bones never left my side as we were waiting. She sat patiently and held my hand with one hand while rubbing the tension from the back of my neck with the other hand.

All I can think as we sit there waiting is that I do not deserve this woman who has firmly ensconced herself in my life, who is placing aside her personal beliefs to sit here and help me reestablish mine despite the conflicting ideals.

.

When Father Mitch was finally available, he escorted us to his office where he invited us to make ourselves comfortable.

Parker had made himself comfortable in an armchair near a window with his game and headphones as Bones and I sat on a love seat near Father Mitch's desk. He pulled a chair over and sat in front of us.

I could tell Parker was a little curious as to what was going on. He deserved to know, but he seemed shy to ask and seemed content to just sit and play his game.

"Seeley," the older man started. "I've known you for years. Over a decade, in fact. I've seen your struggles with several things over the years. You know what I've told you in the past. I don't need to repeat all of that. I know you were anticipating some long lecture about addiction and illness and the path to healing; Am I right?"

"Honestly, yeah," I admitted to him with a nod of my head.

"I am going to repeat the one thing, that I don't think has stuck to you through any of that. We're all human, Seeley. _You're_ not perfect; _I'm_ not perfect. We _all_ falter and God always forgives. All you have to do is ask. You're here today, despite everything you've been through—"

"And the stares and gossip," I added, not really meaning to.

"Yes, that, too, but what matters is that you're here. You're here. You're contrite. You're hurting. From what Temperance, here, told me, you have a very strong support system. I just wanted to meet with you today to let you know that I'm also here anytime you need me; just as I have always been. Just to visit about anything, about anything troubling you… anything, Seeley. I mean that."

"I know." I did. This man has been another crucial part of my recovery in the past. I don't think Bones knows this—or maybe she does now since she's talked to him, but he was actually my sponsor the first time I joined the gamblers anonymous group here at the church. And when he said he knew about the gossip and the stares, I knew he was telling the truth; a Catholic Priest is supposed to be the visage of a consecrated life in which the individual maintains a stable form of faithful living and is expected to uphold several moral and ethical values, and that certainly doesn't include addictions.

"I may not be privy to all of your current triggers, Seeley, but I know what it's like to fight them, to have all of your senses assaulted by them. If you need to talk, call me. Day or night," he handed me a card with his number on it. It appeared he was resuming his role as my sponsor.

Bones had remained silent and supportive throughout our talk, which was not the long ass-chewing I had expected. Instead, I feel as if I've been given a clean slate. I'd been told that from then on, it was my responsibility to seek solace and absolution for my actions and hold myself accountable.

"Are there still… you know…Sunday nights?" I tried to ask when there was a little bit of an awkward silence that no one seemed to be able to fill.

"Meetings?" He filled in for me. "Yeah."

"Same time?"

"Yep. Tonight at eight. Will you be there?"

"Yeah. I think I will," I nodded my head in confirmation. I looked to Bones, who gave me a little smile then I looked to my son, who had apparently put his game up a long time ago and was just sitting there listening quietly. "I will definitely be there," I said more firmly when I looked back to the older man.

* * *

**Baby Henry is a week old today! Awww.**

**Announcement: We're thinking blue around here, too!**

******Please take the time to let me know what you think. :)**

**XOXO,  
CrayonClown  
**


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